Ghosts of the Gridiron - Greg Lautenslager

The lives of three former quarterbacks are on a downward spiral. Sports columnist Jack Byrne is so distraught by the hostility from his boss, his colleagues, his readers, and his wife that he finds himself in a drunken stupor in a Dallas jail cell. Scott Hilfinger is so humiliated by playing football games in bull rings, cricket pitches, and Canadian blizzards that he and his bottle of whiskey board a bus in Edmonton for his hometown of Deadhorse, Oklahoma. Johnny Molinski is so embarrassed after running to the wrong end zone in his college debut that he disappears altogether.

Yet, the lives of these three men are mysteriously intertwined – especially after the only life Jack knew blows up, literally, one cold, dreary night in the middle of nowhere. He floats around with other football phantoms from polished to demolished stadiums while being chased through dark alleys and back roads on a path Jack hopes will lead he, Scott, and Johnny to the grandest stage of them all and back to the life and wife he abandoned and achieve the one goal he sought all along - redemption.