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SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
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BER 2, 2019
take care of his old charges. “That program molded
my life and shaped my mentality,” Lowe says. “I’m
glad Chip yelled at me. I deserved it. He taught me to
act and not think.”
LOWE’S PLAYING career concluded like so many
others: He went out on a high, catching the first
TD in a College Football Playoff national championship
game, a loss to Ohio State in January 2015, and then
faced the harsh realities of The End. He resolved to
make a go at the NFL, even though he knew that with
68 career catches, 891 yards and 11 TDs, his chances
fell somewhere between long shot and Come on, dude.
After running a 4.4-second 40 at his pro day in Eugene
he landed a tryout with the Cardinals as an undrafted
free agent—which lasted all of four days. In the end he
netted no more than a few pairs of Arizona gym shorts
out of it. “But I didn’t have any regrets,” he says.
Lowe moved back home and considered applying for
a job at Nike. Then a strange area code popped up on
his cellphone. “Keanon, it’s Chip.”
Heading into his third season with the Eagles, Kelly
needed an offensive analyst—but more than a football
brain, he needed another believer in his system. He
calls Lowe an “old soul”; he says he’d never seen the
receiver in “an immature moment.” Because of that,
he figured Lowe could command the respect of older
players and help re-create the old Oregon football ethos.
Lowe was in. He moved across the country to cut up
film and fetch coffee, grinding one 15-hour day into
the next. On Sundays he’d relay the offensive play calls
from the sideline, often sending in the same schemes
he’d run himself at Oregon. He found he liked it there,
on the sideline; he loved teaching and motivating, and
he could power through the grunt work.
The Eagles went a disappointing 7–9 that season,
and when the front office fired the entire coaching
staff Lowe followed Kelly to San Francisco... where
together they finished 2–14 in 2016. Kelly got another
pink slip, and Lowe found himself again at a crossroad.
At 23, his NFL career in limbo, Lowe hung around
the Bay Area, weighing what to
do next. Then one night Forrest
called. Instantly, Lowe could tell
something had gone horribly
wrong. “It’s Taylor,” the voice on
the other end said.FOR YEARS Lowe had
watched from afar as one
of his best friends descended into
the dark throes of addiction.
Three surgeries—two on his left
shoulder, another on a torn left-
elbow tendon—had ended Mar-
tinek’s college career after three
seasons. The once-carefree line-
backer ended up strung-out on
painkillers, in and out of treat-
ment centers, committing petty
crimes, getting into fights, land-
ing in jail, violating parole.
But by 2016 those around
Martinek hoped he had made
a permanent turn toward sobriety. He completed a
treatment program and landed a sales rep job at a local
marketing firm; his bosses were aware of his demons
and supported his efforts to stay clean. Thanksgiving
and Christmas passed without incident. Taylor even
got a promotion.
The night of his relapse, Friday, Jan. 13, 2017,
Martinek illegally purchased what he thought was
Xanax and Oxycontin but instead contained a lethal
dose of fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller, 50 times stron-
ger than heroin, which accounts for more than half of
all opioid-related deaths in the U.S.
Forrest, who shared an apartment with his old buddy,
found Martinek unresponsive the next afternoon, his
lips, ears, arms and shoulders all blue. Brian Martinek,