TEMPE, Ariz. -- The note -- written in desperation, laced with exclamation points and capital letters -- arrived in an email inbox at NFL headquarters among a deluge of 2,000 applications. Chris Baker would never say it, but this was it. His last chance. How do you boil down your dreams, your existence, on a tiny computer screen? How do you tell a stranger that you're 23 years old, that you have no Plan B because you know this is the one thing you're meant to do?
The hardest part for Baker was moving back home with his parents in Greenville, Mississippi, after his Achilles injury. He was holed up in that house for months, subsisting mainly on takeout delivery food. He couldn't stand the look of pity in people's eyes when he walked around his hometown of 34,000, and they struggled not to ask the question that lingered like the Delta humidity: "Haven't you moved on yet?"
In the NFL, two years out of football is the equivalent of being stranded on the moon. Baker was never a particularly heralded player coming out of East Carolina University, but he was impressing scouts in the spring of 2013 during the NFL's super regional combine at AT&T Stadium, the luxurious home of the Dallas Cowboys. Former Atlanta Falcons pass-rusher Chuck Smith, who was helping with drills at the event, said Baker was the best linebacker-defensive end hybrid that day. He was flying through his workouts; he was almost finished. Then Baker ran a hip drill and landed awkwardly. The pop sounded like a gunshot blast. It was just weeks before the 2013 NFL draft.
His father, Bruce, rushed down from the stands and lifted his 6-foot-2, 255-pound son onto a cart. Doctors mumbled in grim tones, but Chris stared at the floor and didn't hear any of it. When they finally got to the stadium parking lot, and everyone was gone except for father and son, that's when Baker let loose. He sobbed as he sat in the passenger seat of the truck, questioning God, fate and what in the hell he'd do with the rest of his life.
Back home in Mississippi, Baker's mom heard all of it on her cellphone. Toya Baker was supposed to be sleeping because she'd just done a 12-hour nursing shift at the hospital, but she couldn't. She needed to know how her youngest boy had done. She asked whether he was finished with his workout. "Oh yeah, he's finished," Bruce thought to himself.
The elder Baker long believed he'd be the one to play professional sports. A 47-year-old truck driver, he still looks as if he could take out a lineman or two himself. Eventually, the reality of family and work set in, and Bruce channeled all of that passion into his son.
Bruce patted his son on the back as he stood outside the passenger door. "Well, Chris, you were almost there," he told him. "I'm here. We're going to support you. We're going to help you get back."
Two years later, the NFL announced it would be holding its first veteran combine, an audition for players whose phones had long ago stopped ringing. Baker, healed and rehabbed from his injury, excitedly went online to find out how he could sign up. Within seconds, he was stopped by one of the rules. All players must have at some point been in an NFL camp, which excluded Baker.
He talked to his dad and his agent and decided to apply anyway. What did he have to lose?
Baker sat down and poured his heart out into a letter to Matt Birk, the league's new director of football development. After attending Harvard, Birk had played 15 seasons in the NFL on the offensive line, and he often had joked that he relied far more on his wits than his talent. Surely Birk would understand Baker's plight.
I promise if allowed to participate at the veterans combine I will not embarrass you or myself. I plan on competing at a high level, and being one of the top performers. Mr. Birk, being a former player I know you understand how hard it is to get an NFL opportunity.
Baker went up to his high school and had his trainer, Lavante Epson, shoot video of him running the 40-yard dash. He taped himself doing various drills on an iPhone and sent all of it in the email to Birk. And then Baker waited, for opportunity or for someone to tell him to stop.
Birk was slammed with résumés and videos and applications, but he saw the email, and asked several people in the NFL office whether they'd heard of Chris Baker. "Oh yeah," one of them said. "His dad carried him off the field."
The NFL exec was moved by Baker's passion and liked the way he moved around in his workouts. Birk considered him a legitimate prospect. So Baker was invited to the combine Sunday at the Arizona Cardinals' facility along with 104 other men who paid a $400 fee to audition in front of a bleacher-full of scouts, general managers and a couple of head coaches.
Some of them had no problem writing that check. The combine featured a few former big names, such as quarterback Brady Quinn and defensive ends Adam Carriker and Jamaal Anderson, who were all picked in the first round of the 2007 draft. But most of the participants had never been notable, and that was the point.
In the weeks before this inaugural event, it was widely reported that Vince Young was interested in coming, but he wasn't invited. The purpose of the veteran combine is to find players who somehow slipped through the cracks despite the NFL's intricate and meticulous scouting system. The league knows all about Young, a 31-year-old quarterback who has played on five NFL rosters.
But for most of the 105 sprinting for their football lives Sunday, the book has never been written. They were invited to camps, got injured or lost in the numbers game, and were cut, putting their lives on perpetual hold.
In the past, their only hope was to participate in regional combines in the offseason, but many scouts were turned off by what those events had become. Anyone could put on a pair of spandex shorts and audition in a regional combine -- middle-aged couch potatoes trying to relive their high school glory days, or yahoos looking for something fun to do on a Saturday -- and it was detracting from the precious few with the skills to possibly make a roster.
"A lot of people will look at the list and say, 'Who are these guys?'" Birk says. "But that's the point. Everybody deserves, I think, two chances.
"The truth is, this will provide closure for some of these guys. It [may not be] the desired outcome, but if you've been on a club once or twice and you've got a chance to work out in front of all 32 teams and you don't get called, then you know, 'Hey, I gave it my best shot. I'm not happy, but now I know I should move on to the next phase of my life.' At least they can have that."
That's all Carriker wanted -- one more shot. He has undergone three knee surgeries and has been out of the league for nearly two years but was cleared by Dr. James Andrews this past summer. Since then, he says he's been "working out like a madman," and he was impressive during Sunday's defensive lineman drills. Although the bench press was not part of Sunday's card, he proceeded to go to the weight room after his drills to lift 225 pounds repeatedly.
Carriker is 30 now and has been living in Colorado with his wife and three young kids since being cut by the Washington Redskins in early 2014 because of his knee issues. Though he was once highly touted, even Carriker has had a hard time staying on the radar since he's been out of football.
He said Sunday that he wanted to show folks he was still alive.
"It's like when I go to bed at night, I think of a few things," he says. "My family, the Lord, and I think about football. I told my wife I wish I could turn this off. This thing right here," he says, pointing to his chest.
"I wish I could shut it off, I wish it would go away. Because I have no idea if I'll ever get an opportunity again. And that could drive me nuts for a long time. I'll know [when it's over]. I know right now it's not. There's no doubt in my mind it's not."
Sunday was a day of hope, desperation and probably a few unrealistic dreams. By 9 a.m., a man with a suitcase and a duffel bag was standing in the parking lot, telling a security guard that he wanted to try out. He was wearing a jacket and long pants in the Arizona heat and said he took a bus from Gary, Indiana, to get here. He said that his name was Pat Nnadi, that he was 33 years old and that he played less than a year of football at McPherson College in Kansas.
(A sports information official at McPherson said the school's system shows that Nnadi signed up for classes in 1998, but there is no record of him attending class or playing in a football game).
Nnadi said he had workout clothes in his bag and was ready to go. His tattered suitcase had a wire-bound notebook hanging out of it. A personal diary, Nnadi said. He was going to wait until someone, a scout or a coach, talked to him. He said he believed he could play in the NFL.
"I played running back and special teams," he said. "I wasn't too shabby."
Four hours later, Nnadi was still in the parking lot, stripped down to a T-shirt and shorts. The guard gave him a bottle of water and contemplated how to get him to leave.
Of course, there is room in the NFL for long shots. Malcolm Butler proved that less than two months ago, just a few miles away in Glendale, where he intercepted an end zone pass in the waning seconds, giving the New England Patriots a Super Bowl championship.
Butler once worked at Popeye's. He was not drafted, did not go to a football powerhouse school and tried out for the Patriots last spring when most 90-man rosters were already full.
Butler played with Chris Baker at Hinds Community College in Mississippi. Baker was watching at home the night his old teammate made history. Nobody else believed it, but Baker kept thinking that night that Butler was on the verge of making a big play. When he did, Baker got up and ran around the house, celebrating.
If Baker had any doubts, Butler reinforced his belief that anything could happen. Every time things looked bleak for Baker, something good happened. That day in Arlington, Texas, when Baker thought it was over, he asked God for a sign. And then almost on cue, Kevin Conner, his agent at the time, called and said he'd just gotten off the phone with Chuck Smith.
Smith, who was on the field when Baker's Achilles popped, was calling to check on him. He told Conner to tell Baker that he was talented and shouldn't quit.
There were many people who saved Baker along the way: the surgeon who squeezed him in despite being hopelessly booked, the rehab doctor who gave him free sessions when his insurance ran out, the trainer who rode Baker harder every time a hint of doubt creeped in.
But Baker's co-MVPs, as he calls them, are his parents. They aren't wealthy by any means, but they gave him everything he needed, working extra shifts to help pay for camps, training and doctors. Bruce Baker can't begin to estimate how much they've invested in their son's dream -- and his own -- but says it's "a large sum of money."
Toya is the realist in the family. She was 16 years old when her mother died, and she helped raise her younger sisters. But she never thought of football as a crazy dream. It was Toya who repeatedly assured the family that Chris would indeed get his shot someday. She believes the Achilles injury happened for a reason. He wasn't ready for the NFL in 2013, she says. He was immature and didn't fully grasp his opportunity.
In college, everything was taken care of for him. When he got hurt, he had to make decisions for himself and become a man. He took a job as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Greenville Weston High. They needed each other, Greenville coach Phil Short figures. The Hornets yearned for an infusion of youth and energy on the staff; Baker was looking for structure and to be wanted.
Baker trained three hours a day before football practice, and eventually started working out with an old friend named Carlos Thompson, who had just finished up his career at Ole Miss. Thompson recently was the surprise of the Rebels' pro day, and he credits some of it to the daily competition in the gym he had with Baker.
When Baker trains, he often wears his gray-and-white Under Armour spandex shirt that he had on in Arlington when his Achilles popped. It reminds him of how far he has come.
Just a year ago, Baker was in a much darker place. He competed in a regional combine before his injury was healed, and the workout was so bad he was embarrassed to show the tape to Epson, his trainer. When he finally showed it, Epson couldn't help but laugh. Baker fell after he ran the 40-yard dash. In the background, Epson could see one scout drop his head after Baker fell. It's what scouts do when an athlete is wasting their time.
But after a long two years, Baker is ready. Epson knows it. Reality tells them that the chances of making it into an NFL camp are slim for most of the combine participants.
In the best-case scenario, a team will call and ask him in for another workout, which could lead to a spot on a 90-man roster, which could lead to a chance to prove himself in offseason training activities and camp.
But most guys will go home after the combine, put their cleats away, and do the same thing they've done for months and years. They'll wait.
The long shots were flown in for one night on Saturday at the Phoenix airport Marriott. Baker drove two hours from Greenville to Jackson, Mississippi, to catch his flight.
He shared a hotel room with Ka'Lial Glaud, an outside linebacker from Rutgers who was on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' practice squad this past season. Baker was up most of the night listening to Glaud's stories about the NFL.
Glaud gave him some pointers, but his best advice for Sunday was to go hard, leave everything on the field and not worry about things you can't control. Baker slept about 3½ hours Saturday night. Every 45 minutes or so, he'd wake up. "Is it time?" he thought to himself.
"The main surprise to me was just hearing other guys' stories," Baker says, "seeing other guys go through what I go through. Everybody's journey is different, but guys got the same bumps and bruises like I do."
Baker did go hard Sunday. And when he was finished, he was approached by a couple of scouts. (Baker declined to say which teams talked to him.) Like other participants, he was disappointed that the workout didn't include the bench press or the broad jump or vertical. Baker was hoping to show the scouts his explosiveness.
Birk said Baker unofficially ran the 40-yard dash in the 4.8 range, which was a few tenths of a second off the workout video he sent to the league office. Baker agonized over that, and he didn't tell his dad the unofficial numbers as he waited at the airport to catch a red-eye flight.
Bruce Baker was on the road delivering grain over the weekend, and that was probably a good thing. He couldn't wear out the floors pacing. Chris estimated he called at least 10 times over a span of two days, asking what shoes he'd wear, how he felt -- everything.
In the family room of their ranch house in Mississippi, there are trophies lined up against the wall, near the pool table that doubles for pingpong. They are Bruce's trophies. This is their dream.
Why does Chris keep going? It's all he knows and loves. But he also thinks about the words his dad has told him since he was little.
"Don't be like me," Bruce would say, "and every day regret that you didn't reach your goals."
And so Chris Baker left Phoenix late Sunday night, his future still unknown, but without regret.