IF YOU play long enough, you will see it all. You will see yourself one game from the Super Bowl at age 24, clueless and flying on instinct, only to crash and burn less than two years later, accused of racism and cowardice, captured on pre-YouTube video leaving a drunk tank, teetering metaphorically at the edge of a cliff. You will see yourself rehabilitated two years later and this time playing all the way to the Super Bowl?where you throw four passes to the wrong team. You will see yourself in god-awful silver-and-black Football purgatory and then in Tennessee on the ceremonial last stop before retirement, the backup to a mold-breaking superstar-in-the-making. You will find yourself, at 35, on your cattle farm in North Carolina in the summer of 2008, with your wife and young daughter, and you'll think that maybe 13 years of playing quarterback in the NFL is enough. Especially after you've tested the limits of professional survival in every way imaginable and emerged the better for it. You'll think it's a little bit harder to leave for yet another training camp.

But you will get into your Chevy Suburban and begin the drive to Nashville, 7 1/2 hours west on I-40. And the emotions will come flooding back, as they have for more than 20 Julys, since your high school days in Central Pennsylvania. "Old familiar feelings," you'll say later. "I started to get fired up."

You are ready to spend one last season wearing a baseball cap on the sideline. "But this is a funny business," you say. "Things happen. Things you don't expect to happen." Like the young superstar-to-be's meltdown in Week 1, asking out of a game in the face of hometown booing, spraining his knee and then going missing for one long, strange night. The job is yours, and everything falls into place, and damn near the middle of December, after a 28--9 win over the Cleveland Browns , the Tennessee Titans are 12--1 and you are their leader and their lifeline. And now you really have seen it all.

"Things happened early in my career. There's something that drives all of us who have been in this game for a long time. For me, a lot of it is trying to atone for those things so that they're not my legacy."?Kerry Collins, December 2008

NFL PLAYERS cut no slack for reserves thrust into starting roles. "Guys expect the second guy to step up," says Titans center Kevin Mawae, a 15-year veteran. "Especially at quarterback." It happens every week. Still, the circumstances surrounding Collins's ascension in Tennessee were outside the norm. Vince Young was the new face of the franchise, an electrifying runner-passer who had taken the Titans to the playoffs in 2007, his second season, and who could rescue a lost game with his extraordinary skills. Suddenly, before the team's opening game of '08 was finished, Young was struggling (two interceptions), had to be talked back into the game by coach Jeff Fisher and then injured his left knee.

It was Collins, signed by Tennessee in '06 to help smooth Young's transition to the pro game, who secured that Week 1 victory. He finished an insurance drive to give the Titans a 17--7 lead, and they held on to win 17--10. A week later, after concerns about Young's psychological state prompted a call to the police, Collins was named the starting quarterback. In that maelstrom the Titans beat the Cincinnati Bengals 24--7. A week later, at home against Houston, Collins's first pass was intercepted. On the second offensive series of the game he entered the huddle and said, "Now that we got that out of the way, let's play some Football."

Such is the measure of Collins's cool that the transition to a veteran who lacks the athleticism to execute the plays created for Young has been seamless. "If Kerry had laid an egg, there would have been problems in the locker room," says Mawae. "But he came in, played successfully and challenged guys to elevate their games."

Collins is part of a veteran resurgence at the NFL's most important position. No fewer than five quarterbacks who are 35 or older?Brett Favre of the New York Jets (39), Jeff Garcia of the Tampa Bay Bucs (38), Kurt Warner of the Arizona Cardinals (37), Gus Frerotte of the Minnesota Vikings (37) and Collins?have led their teams into strong playoff positions. No common reason is apparent save the obvious: Been there, seen that. How else do you compare a dead-solid first-ballot Hall of Famer like Favre and a journeyman like Frerotte? Or a gunslinger like Warner and a stable, ball-control quarterback like Collins?

Seldom has Collins compiled great individual statistics, and this year is no exception. He ranks in the bottom third of the league in nearly every major passing category. But he also has thrown only four interceptions, and in November wins over Chicago and Jacksonville, when defenses filled the box to stop Tennessee's potent ground game, he passed for an average of just under 260 yards. "We are a run-oriented team," says Fisher, "but in a number of games this year we've had to pick it up and throw it."

Early last week Collins sat at the front edge of a couch in the players' lounge at the Titans' practice facility. With a heavy flannel shirt and some Favreian salt-and-pepper stubble, he looked every bit the gentleman farmer that he is in the off-season. This year has been a gift of sorts, and Collins knows it. "Of course I didn't expect this," he says. "But a lot of what happens for a quarterback in this league depends on what kind of car you've got to drive. This is a pretty good car."

Yet every game that Collins wins, every play he makes, is a measure of his survival. In 1996 he took Carolina to the NFC Championship Game in his second year out of Penn State (and the Panthers' second year in existence), seemingly grabbing success by the throat. But it was a hoax. "Kerry had the swagger and confidence of a Football player," says Steve Beuerlein, Carolina's veteran backup that season, "but at the same time he would look at me and say, 'Dude, I have no idea why it's going so well. I have no idea what's going on half the time out there.'"

Collins was also hitting Charlotte bars hard, and he fell as quickly as he'd risen. One night during training camp in '97 he came back to the team quarters drunk and used a racial slur to refer to a teammate. In a preseason game his jaw was broken on a hit by Denver's Bill Romanowski, yet Collins was back in the lineup by Week 3 of the regular season. "He played when we never should have let him play," says Bill Polian, then the general manager of the Panthers and now the G.M. of the Colts.

The Panthers went 7--9. Collins threw 11 touchdown passes and 21 picks. The pressure intensified. Beuerlein recalls sitting with Collins in the locker room one evening early in the '98 season and the younger QB saying, "I can't handle this. How can you do this? You've been playing forever. I need to get away. I don't think I want to be a quarterback and all the stuff that goes with it, being the face of the franchise, people watching me everywhere I go. I just want to be a rock star. I don't want the rest of it."

Collins remembers the same period. "I thought the glory and the fame were reasons to do this," he says. "I was wrong. I was really wrong. And I had to learn that by being on the downside of it."

THE DOWNSIDE was ugly. Before Carolina's fifth game of the 1998 season, coach Dom Capers told reporters that Collins had come to him and said he no longer had the heart to lead the team. (Collins has repeatedly contested the full accuracy of that statement.) His teammates recoiled, and Warren Sapp, then playing for Tampa Bay, publicly called him a coward. A week later Collins was put on waivers and signed by the New Orleans Saints. The Carolina chapter of his life didn't come to a full close until three weeks later, when New Orleans played at Charlotte. Collins, who didn't appear in the game, was arrested for drunken driving that night after a party with former teammates. Video shot by a Charlotte television station of his release from jail?shuffling along with a cigar in his mouth?appeared widely on news reports around the country.

At the end of the season Collins spent eight weeks in rehab. "The biggest thing I needed to do was learn to live without alcohol," says Collins, "and I did that." (Collins also added last week, "I don't want there to be any misconception. For nine years I didn't drink a drop. Occasionally I do now. I'm at such a different point in my life. But I don't want to sit here and act like I'm something when I'm not.") He also learned how to handle the scrutiny that comes with being an NFL quarterback. "You almost have to learn to shelter your mind from what's being said in the outside world. It's an acquired skill. Media, fans, good games, bad games. You have to create a disconnect between those things and your job."

The New York Giants signed Collins in February '99, giving him a chance to restart his career. "We spent the better part of a day together, just talking," says Jim Fassel, the Giants' coach at the time. "I opened the door for him to blame anybody he wanted for his problems, and he wouldn't do it. He took all the responsibility on himself." The most painful trials were behind Collins, but there would be other hurdles.

In 2000 the Giants went 12--4 and advanced to the NFC title game, where Collins threw for 381 yards and five touchdowns in a 41--0 romp over Minnesota. But in the Super Bowl he was intercepted four times by the voracious Baltimore Ravens defense, one of the best in recent NFL history. Yet that defeat proved revelatory. "In a way, that Super Bowl game was liberating for me," says Collins. "I threw four interceptions in the biggest game you can possibly play in. I played like crap. And you know what? Eventually I was all right. I got past it. The sun came up. In a Football sense I can't possibly screw up worse than that, and there's a certain freedom involved in that. If I can come back from that, I can come back from anything."

The theory would be tested. Three years later he finished a 4--12 season injured and inactive, and the Giants set their sights on Eli Manning in the 2004 draft. They wanted Collins to keep the quarterback position warm for Manning, but he declined and signed with Oakland. Over the next two years the Raiders won only nine games, but on a very bad team Collins threw for more than 7,200 yards and 41 touchdowns.

"We had pretty good production on offense there," says wideout Jerry Porter, who caught 129 passes from Collins in Oakland. "But I'll tell you what Kerry did: He took all of the blame for our problems, justified or not. He never hid from any of it."

In the 2006 off-season Collins, who was by then married (he and his wife, Brooke, have a four-year-old daughter), retreated to the cattle farm he'd bought in '03 and worked the stock on horseback. Football receded from his thoughts. "Retirement was a possibility," says Collins. "I was burned out from those two years in Oakland." Collins didn't consider an offer until he signed with Tennessee just before the final preseason game. Presumptive starter Billy Volek was at odds with Fisher, and Collins started the first three games before giving way to Young. "When it came down to it," says Collins, "I didn't want my career to end the way it did in Oakland."

COLLINS'S PERSONAL odyssey is inspirational, but it does not explain the return to glory in his mid-30s. It's a challenge to pinpoint a single reason. Collins, who will be a free agent again after the season, is playing at 228 pounds, almost 20 below his weight in the Super Bowl. In 14 years there are few defensive wrinkles he hasn't seen. He embraces Fisher's low-risk approach. "Kerry understands that the odds of converting third-and-13 are not very good," says Fisher. "So don't try to squeeze the ball into a tight window or take a big hit. Put it on the ground, punt and put together a drive the next time." The Titans are very good both in front of Collins (the offensive line) and behind him (the running backs).

If his numbers this season are unimpressive, Collins's leadership has been vital. "It became a matter of owning the team," says Mawae, "and Kerry has done that." Fisher suggested that the Titans might try to work Young back into the lineup as the playoffs approach, but an injured thumb kept him out of practice last week, and he spent another Sunday watching from the sideline. The team belongs to the old man. The old man belongs to the moment.

"Whether it's a touchdown pass, an interception or a Super Bowl, the last one is in the past," says Collins. "And then you always have to prove yourself all over again. This game is about the ability to come back." Here a long, intended pause, letting the years roll silently by. And then, with a sweep of his arms that takes in the length and breadth of his past: "From whatever."

"I threw four interceptions in the biggest game you can play in, and I got past it," says Collins. "There's a certain FREEDOM in that."

BOX STORY:

BREAKING NEWS, REAL-TIME SCORES AND DAILY ANALYSIS.

DRAFT DO-OVERDon Banks analyzes the 2008 rookie class and re-picks the players in the first round of the draft based on what we know now.

SI.COM/NFL

a