Aledo resident ex-Dallas Cowboys deep snapper L.P. Ladouceur perfect for Freakonomics
L.P. Ladouceur dispelled the notion that the reason he was not retained was because in the final week of the 2020 regular season he went to first-year head coach Mike McCarthy to tell him that the players did not want to practice in full pads.
“We had done our full 13 padded practices in the season, and [McCarthy] wanted us in pads one day before we played the Giants [in Week 17]. I stepped up and said, ‘This is bull[stuff],’” Ladouceur said in a phone interview. “The rule is you have 13 padded practices. The players were [not happy].
“I was stuck in between, because for me being in pads is not a big deal. About 10 guys came up to me and said, ‘What is going on?’ I called the NFLPA to make sure the rules had not changed because of COVID, and I talked to Mike and I don’t think he was upset about it, at all. He understood.
“The reality was I was getting older, and [special teams coach] John Fassel had his guy.”
As a result, the long-time deep snapper of the Cowboys did not break the team record for most games played as the team decided early last offseason he would not be offered another contract, thus ending his 16-year career with the team.
He passed on the chance to potentially join another team before the start of the season, and was retired. Ish.
During the season, however, Ladouceur had a final decision to make when Rich Bisaccia called to offer him a job to play in the NFL again.
The then head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders needed a deep snapper for a couple of games late in November. Ladouceur could return to the NFL, and see if it all “still fit.”
“That’s when I had to ask myself, ‘Am I retired, or am I still going to play?” Ladouceur said. “I talked to my wife, and I had not touched a ball since January. It was not fair to Rich, to put him in that position. I wasn’t ready and I knew it. He needed me to play that week. It was still tough to tell him no. We had a great relationship.
“But I knew then that was it.”
Ladouceur is now quite content with life-after-football.
He has no ill-will towards the coaching staff that elected not to retain him, or much interest in the game that he played for more than 20 years.
Ladouceur is a new guest of the popular podcast, “Freakonomics Radio,” where the latest topic is the obscure art that Ladouceur mastered for 16 NFL seasons and 253 NFL games, deep snapping.
Ladouceur is the ideal guest for the show, “Specialization in the labor market” under the headline of, “The Most Monotonous Job in the World Also Pays $1 Million.”
L.P. Ladouceur could write a PhD thesis on this topic. Deep snapping for an NFL franchise can be lucrative, provided one has ... “a very particular set of skills, skills ... acquired over a very long career.”
If a deep snapper does not have those particular set of skills, it can be “a nightmare.” Just ask the Green Bay Packers.
Ladouceur, who graduated from Cal Berkeley and originally planned on entering the oil and gas business until the NFL worked out, read the popular book, “Freakonomics,” written by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, which spawned more economics-based applications to a variety of subjects.
The topic is a tailored-made fit for L.P.
Ironically, however, football no longer fits L.P.
“By the time July came, honestly, I was glad I wasn’t playing football any more,” he said. “I only watched football because my son wants to watch it. He’s 7 and he just started to play so we’d watch it on Sunday nights and Monday nights, and that was it.”
For the last several years Ladouceur kept his family vacations to a certain number of days, usually seven. Anything more than that and his body would tighten up, and he had to get back into the gym.
L.P. and his wife, Brooke, run their own land developing company in Parker County, he practices yoga three to four days a week, routinely plays golf at Colonial Country Club, and he’s an involved dad with their son and daughter.
He expects to help coach his son’s football team sooner rather than later.
Football worked out almost perfectly for L.P. Ladouceur, who while he has minimal interest in watching the game any more he is the ideal guest for Freakonomics because few know more about thriving in specialization in the labor market.
