Some N.F.L. Fans Want Andrew Luck Later, Not Wins Now

The Dolphins (0-4), who play the Jets on Monday night and are one of three winless teams, are in a race for the bottom of the N.F.L. standings. But with ignominy this autumn comes glory next spring. There, for the team with the worst record and the first overall draft pick, awaits Andrew Luck, considered the best quarterback prospect since Peyton Manning.

While Luck, coveted for his accuracy and intelligence, enjoys his final season at Stanford, he has inadvertently turned beleaguered followers of struggling N.F.L.’s teams on their heads. From Seattle to Miami, rather than root for a win, fans root for him. Their feelings are summed up in a coarse three-word rhyme that has given shape to Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and dozens of Web sites. It implores downtrodden teams, in essence, to play really, really badly for Luck.

“When they played the Chargers, right before that, I thought, this is what I want as a fan,” Joseph said, referring to the Dolphins’ opponent before the bye. “It’s the first time I ever actively rooted for my team to lose. I was getting mad when the Chargers were making a mistake. It’s really bizarre. I still haven’t come to grips with how I’ll handle it when they play the Jets because I hate the Jets. But it’s big-picture stuff. We’re going to stink no matter what. I’d rather really stink and get the best prospect since Peyton than win four or five games” and a get a less favorable draft pick.

Joseph and others like him do not merely shrug when their teams lose; they want their teams to fold. Tanking in sports is hardly unheard of. The former No. 1 tennis player Andre Agassi revealed in his autobiography that he deliberately lost in the semifinals of the Australian Open one year because he did not want to face Boris Becker in the final. N.B.A. teams are regularly suspected of losing intentionally late in the season. And in 1988, Giants quarterback Phil Simms accused the 49ers of laying down like dogs after playoff-bound San Francisco lost its regular-season finale to the Rams, thereby eliminating the Giants, who had beaten the 49ers in recent postseasons.

That fans are rooting for a collapse — especially less than one-third of the way through the season — speaks to the appeal of Luck, who has consumed the N.F.L. even as he has flown somewhat under the college radar this season. The Cardinal will not play a highly anticipated game until Nov. 12 against Oregon. But even in what is expected to be a strong 2012 quarterback draft class, the ardor for Luck is not surprising. He would have been the top pick if he had left Stanford last season. The fan campaign seems to have sprung up organically, before he announced that he would stay in college.

“I am aware of it,” said Luck, who becomes awkward and uncomfortable whenever the N.F.L. is brought up. “A couple of guys told me about it. I think it’s stupid. Simply put.”

The phenomenon of fans hoping their team gives up on the season is unlike anything the N.F.L. has seen, in part because Luck is the first consensus sure-bet prospect in the social media age. When John Elway was drafted in 1983, and when the debate raged about whether Manning or Ryan Leaf was better in 1998, far fewer outlets fed fans’ thirst for information and speculation. And the anticipation of Luck’s arrival has been heightened by a record-threatening N.F.L. season proving that an elite quarterback is essential to success.

Luck has also spurred a curious twist on scoreboard watching. The Facebook page dedicated to Seahawks fans’ interest in Luck called Seattle’s victory over the Arizona Cardinals a “minor setback” and encouraged fans to “stay strong.” When Miami quarterback Chad Henne sustained a season-ending shoulder injury and the Dolphins signed Sage Rosenfels, someone noted that the move was not going to help the Seahawks’ chances: “Henne is out and the Dolphins sign a guy who hasn’t thrown a pass since 2008. Way to mail it in, Miami!”

Joseph was delighted last Sunday when Seattle and Kansas City each won for the second time and Minnesota got its first victory because that could eliminate them as competition for the Dolphins. He does not seem to worry much about St. Louis, which used its first overall pick two years ago on Sam Bradford. Despite struggles this season, Bradford is considered a rising star. Although the Broncos have just one victory — and Elway scouted Luck from the sideline at Stanford, Elway’s alma mater — Denver fans seem more interested in whether Tim Tebow is a viable starter than whether he will torpedo any chance for Luck.

Pete Thamel contributed reporting.

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A Year Later, LeGrand Has Reason to Believe

He's got an itch. He can't scratch it because he is paralyzed below the shoulders.

If his mom was close by, he'd rub his face against her chest, shoulder or arm. He does that with his girlfriend, too. He'll even do it to one his physical therapists now and again.

But when no one is close enough, he just makes that face.

"I miss the most being able to take care of myself," he says.

On Sunday, Oct. 16, it will be one year since the 21-year-old LeGrand played his last football game, made his last tackle. Rutgers had just scored, and kicked off to Army late in a game at the new Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. LeGrand, then a 270-pound defensive lineman for the Scarlet Knights, made a hit on Army kick returner Malcolm Brown and fractured his C3 and C4 vertebrae. LeGrand remembers going down and being dazed, but didn't understand at the time how severely he was hurt.

The amazing thing now is, for a guy who still can't scratch his nose, LeGrand will tell you with a smile — always with a smile — why he has so many reasons to be grateful.

He survived an injury that not everyone survives.

He's breathing without a ventilator, something doctors had told his mother would be unlikely.

He spent five months as a patient at Kessler Institute in West Orange, N.J., where he saw people with spinal cord injuries who could not even eat. Now he's an outpatient there, rehabbing three days a week.

After missing most of his junior year, he's back to working on his degree at Rutgers. He takes classes three nights a week, using an online video conference to watch the lectures from home.

He greets his former teammates in the locker room before each Rutgers home game, then he goes to his new job.

Like most athletes do when they are done playing, LeGrand is now a sportscaster. He does analysis during pregame, postgame and halftime of Rutgers radio broadcasts. He's already done his first TV spot, too.

He hangs out with his friends and his girlfriend. He tweets — (at)BigE52_RU has more than 21,000 followers — and posts on his Facebook page thanks to a voice activated laptop.

He's often asked to speak at schools and churches, to talk about overcoming adversity by staying positive, never giving up hope, believing in God and yourself.

Believing is a big part of LeGrand's life.

In the two-bedroom apartment where he and his mother, Karen LeGrand, live in Woodbridge, about a mile away from the home where he grew up in Avenel — which is being rebuilt to accommodate him — there is a wood carving of BELIEVE on the TV stand.

The art work on the living room wall, BELIEVE.

On the front of his mom's black shirt, BELIEVE in red letters with LeGrand's number, 52.

Eric LeGrand believes he will walk again.

"When I get better ...."

He says that a lot. Never if. When.

Karen LeGrand would have it no other way.

"We have faith and we pray and we know in the long run — we don't know how long it's going to be — but in the long run he's going to be OK," she says. "He's going to be fine. He's going to walk and he's going to do great things. And he's going to do great things in the interim as well."

A day in the life of Eric LeGrand is, in a word, busy.

It takes Karen LeGrand, with the help of a nurse and a nurse's aide, about two hours to get Eric out of bed, dressed and into the $40,000 wheelchair that Eric adroitly controls with a mouthpiece.

After five months at Kessler, Karen figures she knows just as much as any caregiver about the proper way to take care for her son.

"I'm really hands on. I have to make sure they do it my way. I'm sure the nurses and the aides hate me."

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