This is a Super Bowl story. It’s one of those stories that wouldn’t be told were the subject not a fringe member of a participating team. But Ben Garland is, and if you’re saying, “Who’s Ben Garland?”… well, that’s the point.
Check the Falcons’ roster for the NFC Championship game, and you’ll find Ben Garland listed as a backup center/left guard. Check the box score of the divisional-round game, and you’ll find that Garland scored two of the Falcons’ 36 points — by plopping atop Russell Wilson after the Seattle quarterback tripped and fell in his end zone. And here you’re asking, “Didn’t you just say Garland played offense?”
Well, yes. He plays a little offense. He worked at center against the Packers two weeks ago after Alex Mack hurt his leg. He plays a little defense, though he’s not listed on the defensive depth chart; he mans the middle of the line in apparent run situations. He plays on special teams. He has has an ongoing role in the Three Phases of the Game that coaches are forever mentioning, which can be said of not many others in the past 55 years of professional football.
On the field during opening-night festivities here Monday, I mentioned — showing my age, I confess — Chuck Bednarik. Garland said he hadn’t heard of him, which isn’t surprising. (He’s 28.) Bednarik, who was nicknamed Concrete Charlie, played center and linebacker for the Eagles and, dating to the 1960 title tilt, is regarded as the last man to play every down in a championship game.
Barring the massively unforeseen, Garland will not work every down of Sunday’s Super Bowl. (He could, however, log serious time at center if Mack is unable to go.) This is a guy who spent parts of five years on the Broncos’ roster while playing in only nine games. He was signed to the Falcons’ practice squad in September 2015 and promoted to the 53-man roster three months later. He has played in every game this season. He’s one of seven Falcons to score a postseason point.
Oh, and there’s this: He’s a captain in the 140th Public Affairs Wing of the Colorado Air National Guard. Owing to his day job in Flowery Branch, he crams what’s supposed to be one-weekend-every-month guardsman duty into an offseason. For that day job, he must absorb two playbooks. He’s a busy guy.
“I love it,” Garland said of multitasking. “I played both ways in high schools. It’s a lot of work, a lot of game plans.”
Garland is from Grand Junction, Colo. He attended Air Force. (He comes from a line of Air Force men.) He played defense there. He served two years’ military service after graduation. Then he joined the Broncos, where he was switched to offense. He was on the practice squad for the Denver team that lost the Super Bowl to Dan Quinn’s Seahawks in February 2014.
Over this regular season, Garland worked 42 snaps on offense, 42 on defense and 160 on special teams. In the postseason, he has logged six snaps on offense (all against Green Bay), nine on defense and 21 on special teams. And yet: Of the 38 Falcons players, coaches and executives whose spoken words were preserved on an official NFL quote sheet this week, his weren’t among them.
No big deal. Others were happy to speak of him. Here was Matt Ryan: “Ben is the best. He’s a guy that if you asked him to do anything, he would do it. Certainly everybody in our locker room has so much respect for Ben, serving for us and our country. He’s one of a kind.”
And here — after prefacing his response with, “This could take a while” — was Quinn: “He’s a man of great character. The work ethic is what sets him apart. He’s somebody who’s going to be there early, and he’s going to stay late. Often he’s the first guy onto the practice field working stuff at center. He wants to stay after and work on extra things.”
Then: “Converting to the defensive line was something that we tried way back in training camp. ‘Could this be another thing that you could do? I know you play center and guard and on our kickoff return; can you also add this into it?’ In typical Ben fashion, (he said) ‘Absolutely.’”
And then: “He’s been a real factor for us. One of the terms that we use is guys that don’t show up on the stat sheet but own their role, and Ben exemplifies that on our team as well as anybody.”
Garland owns a role, though his is many roles, for a team about to play for a championship. When when the Super Bowl is over, Capt. Garland will return to the 140th Public Affairs Wing in Aurora, Colo. There’s another role to own. Of the Falcons and the Air National Guard, he said: “There are a lot of similarities — both are working to be the best team in the world.”
You mightn’t know Ben Garland today. If circumstances warrant, you could hear a lot about him Sunday night. At the moment, he’s a small story. But sometimes small stories get Super-sized.
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