MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.-- --They've touched up his makeup and straightened his suit, and now someone's rolling a lint brush all over Mike Flynn. His shoulders are so broad, and the brush is like a John Deere tractor over a large field.
A voice in the control room tells Flynn to take a deep breath and treat the camera like someone in his living room. Flynn, the bulky center recently released after 10 seasons with the Ravens, says he's "99.9999 percent" sure that he's played his last football game, which is part of the reason he's sitting here in a South Jersey studio on Day One of the NFL's Broadcast Boot Camp. The four-day crash course, which is in its second year, is designed to help players make the transition out of football and into broadcasting.
Even though this studio performance will be seen by no one, when the red light atop Camera 1 shines, Flynn looks slightly hypnotized. He soon chooses to lock eyes with co-host Rich Eisen.
"Please look at the camera," pleads a producer. "Please. Please, say hi to the camera." Flynn's words, at least, are clear and succinct.
"On TV, you don't have any time," he explains a bit later. "You can't slouch. You're thinking about what to say and what the guy next to you is saying and what you're doing with your hands. And everyone's watching you. It's completely nerve-racking."
Flynn is the first to sweat the red light. Current Ravens Derrick Mason and Daniel Wilcox are here, too, at the NFL Films campus. When they learned about the boot camp, applying for a slot was an easy decision. They've read the reports detailing the struggles of many retired players.
"I can't fool myself - my career will come to an end, and I have to be able to transition myself into something else," says Mason, a Ravens wide receiver who begins his 12th year in the league this fall.
At the start of Day One, the 20 players are divided into four groups. Mason and Wilcox are in Group B and are assigned to Edit Room 6. There they watch two minutes of Matt Ryan footage expertly trimmed to 30 seconds. Mason volunteers to practice reacting to the video.
"I think it's pivotal to sit a quarterback his first couple of years," he says. When he finishes, Wilcox turns and gives Mason a fist-bump.
They're all here for a similar reason - each senses the end is near. Wilcox is 31 years old, coming off toe surgery and in the final year of his contract. It's to his credit that he's thinking about the future. On average, the typical NFL career lasts about as long as ice cream spilled on a summer sidewalk.
