A part, yet apart.
“When I was back home in Alabama, rehabbing, I watched every game last year,’’ remembers Cordarro Law wistfully. “Every game. And every one of those days, every one of those games, I wished I was out there.
“I mean, you’re on the team, you know they’re still your brothers but you’re not out there, fighting with the boys.
“That hurts.
“You’re not getting to help. You’re not sharing the joy.
“Football is fun. Especially when you’re winning, beating teams down.
“I’m the type of guy who loves watching my teammates, the guys on the D-line, make plays. I guess the selfish thing would be to turn away, to not watch, because you’re not playing.
“That’s not me.
“But I won’t lie – It was tough.”
A soft, reflective head shake.
“Been a while.”
A shade over a calendar year, actually.
Saturday’s season-opening invasion by the Hamilton Tiger Cats marks Law’s first return to active regular-season combat at rush end since sustaining a broken ankle and ligament damage June 11 last year during the first quarter of a pre-season scuffle against the Edmonton Eskimos up north at Commonwealth Stadium.
“It’s big, having him back,’’ agrees interior stalwart Micah Johnson. “Me and Law, we’re close friends. Not just on the field but off it, too. When he went down last year, it was tough. On a whole bunch of different levels. Defensive tackle is tied to defensive end, right? So the better he is beside me, the easier my job becomes.
“And Law is good.
“This is a short-term memory league, so a lot of people probably forgot just how good. That’s how it goes. You understand that as a football player. It’s one of the things that motivates you, doing all the work behind the scenes: That moment when you get to show everybody who you are, and you bounce back even better than you were before you left.”
D-line coach Corey Mace doesn’t mind if the big man out of Southern Mississippi goes under the radar slightly – at least at first.
“People want to sleep on Law, go right ahead,’’ he says, with a cat-among-the-pigeons smile of contentment. “They’ll remember what kind of player he is pretty quickly.
“He’s had a helluva camp. Sad to see the injury happen to him last year but we sure are excited to see him back and itching to get after it out there again.”
Johnson, of course, understands the mental strain and physical pain of a prolonged push back to optimum health.
“Me being a guy that literally had to rehab for two, two-and-a-half years straight, I know first-hand how rough it can be,’’ he says. “Sometimes your mind can take you to dark places. You’ve just got to keep reminding yourself that all the work is worth it.
“A lot of the time, you’re out of the country, back home, re-habbing by yourself. Not with your teammates. Not with your coaching staff. Not with your training staff. You feel … alone. So a lot of it is up to you and your dedication to the game.
“We talked often last year.
“Thing about Law, he’s still got an old-school Android for a phone. So we just talked. Couldn’t even FaceTime him. I told him: ‘Man, you’ve got to get an iPhone.’ He needs a nice, new phone. I make fun of him every day about it.”
Law’s been waiting for this chance for a year.
“Like anybody in any workforce you work on your craft and wait for the time to execute it,’’ says Johnson. “That feeling of doing your job right, no matter what it is. That’s the reward.
“When you have that taken away …
“You’ve got to be long- and short-sighted at once, taking it day-by-day but seeing where you want to get to down the road.
“Coming back from a major injury you learn so much about yourself. You really do, when faced with a situation like that.”
At 29, feeling good, Law hopes to return to his best, to the 2013 edition who racked up 14 sacks and 44 tackles before heading south for a two-year NFL dalliance with the San Diego Chargers.
Or the vintage responsible for stringing together five sacks over the closing six starts of 2016.
“I’m stoked,’’ he says, as Saturday late afternoon grows ever nearer. “Very looking forward to it. Very, very looking forward to it. Not just the playing football part, but getting to be out there and running around with the boys, the contact, celebrating big plays, hearing the crowd.
“Man, I missed all that.”
Back to health, back in his element, back to doing what he does best. A part, as opposed to apart.
“It’s gonna be so much fun,’’ says Law, flashing a high-beams grin.”
As much fun as New Year’s Eve and Mardi Gras and Carnevale in Rio and St. Patty’s Day in Dublin, you’d wager.
“Yeah,’’ he says by way of confirmation “all those things, put together.
“Christmas, too.”