Day 35 - Footballers Story

Footballers Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer

It was a cold and gloomy late autumn afternoon.  It had been raining all day and the field was a muddy mess.  Finally the clouds had broken and there was a moment of sunshine.  But the players?  The players were nowhere to be seen.  Some would say this was no day for a full scale tilt.  Some would say that the elements are the true test to make a man.  A certain naysayer would reportedly say that if the elements were the true test of the man, then the balances had been weighed and these footballers had been found wanting.  Not so, ye of little faith.  The game of football is meant to be played in the elements, and these were gladiators, true men of the pigskin or gridiron or some such bromide.  Do not question their resolve.  Do not question their dedication to the sport.  Neither rain nor cold was going to stop the game.

It just delayed it a little, that’s all.

The game would not be denied.  Rain makes a man sluggish and slow sometimes, and traffic can give you fits, but these warriors were true to their email alert and text message word and arrived nearly on time.

After the brief challenge to find enough dry land to actually play the game, the semi-weekly game of co-ed flag football was set to begin.

At first 8 players took the field -- 7 men and 1 woman.  Six more battlers would show up shortly and change things in a horribly uneven way, but that’s what happens sometimes when you play co-ed flag football.

At first the game of 4 on 4 seemed to be a diverse but even match.  The two teams were as different physically as they were philosophically.  It was a match up of opposing strengths – speed and long bombs against slow and precise screens and slant routes.  And for one brief moment, the score was tied 1-1 and it seemed like both game plans could work.  They say you can’t teach speed and that might be true.  There is no way to make up that sort of lost ground if your personnel isn’t in place, and there is no zone defense to cover a receiver that can outrun everyone else on the field… In a game of slightly overweight late twenty and early thirty-somethings, the man who played some high school football is going to outclass everyone else involved.  You can stack the rest of the team however you like, but talent is talent and talent doesn’t lie.  Some might say Constantine had no business playing as hard as he did, but those people would be on the losing team and that would be called sour grapes.

It was soon a game that was quickly getting out of hand and when the score was suddenly 4-1 it appeared as if the day was just about over.  It was starting to drizzle again and nobody likes to lose and get wet during a blowout.

But a rag tag group of strangers were about to change everything.  There’s no such thing as a double header in the professional football, but this is Flag Football, and folks, this one had it all!  A day truly meant for the Flag Football hall of Fame… 7 on 7 – The Hero Team of 7 Flag Footballers and The Bad Guys consisting of 6 newbies and the traitorous Jeremy Cooper.  Yes I said traitorous – a turncoat, willing to commit treason, stabbing his friends in the back while pretending to be the nice guy who just wanted to make the teams even and make the new guys feel better.  Jeremy knows what he did, and knows that history will remember it.  But I digress...

They say that weather is the great equalizer between teams – This game had pouring rain, causing the ball to be slick, forcing fumbles and dropped passes, and creating blown coverages and allowing receivers to be free as defenders slip in the mud...

They say that defense wins championships – there were lineman tipping passes, goal line stands, forced punts (seriously, who actually punts in flag football), iron fisted linebackers knocking receivers to the ground, injuries, interceptions returned for touchdowns...

For half the game The Good Guys (formerly knows as The Hero Team) hung around.  But the zone defense wasn’t working... there were missed assignments on defense and injuries were beginning to mount on offense as the Bad Guys played relentless smash mouth football... The Good Guys fell behind by two and the game began to eerily parallel the first game of the day... The Bad Guys were running the field and the Good Guys were starting to slip further and further back...

So how do you defeat that?  It would be nice to say with grit, with a true team effort, with a flawless game plan and new and ambitious play calling…  But that’s not how you play flag football… you win by finding the holes in the zone, by defenses leaving the weakest receiver open only to get burnt, by luckily passing out of failed blitzes…

And of course you win by an All-Star MVP performance.   If a football game were about one drive, one possession, one moment, that moment would have been when Good Guy Constantine channeled his inner Deion Sanders and slipped unnoticed into the passing lane and intercepted a pass that should have never been thrown, only to return it for a game winning touchdown.

That’s how you win football games.

Final Scores:

Game 1: 4-1

Game 2: 8-6

Offensive MVP:

Game 1: Speed Demon – Randy “Constantine” Moss

Defensive MVP:

Game 2:  Shut Down Corner – Deion “Constantine” Sanders

Benedict Arnold Award:  Jeremy – for selling out his friends and going to play for the dark side