They Know a Thing or Two Around Here
December 19, 2021
United States — Athens, Georgia
University of Georgia
Vandiver Hall, Room 607
I'd come back to Athens yesterday — exactly one week after the 2021 Heisman Trophy ceremony wrapped up.
In that stretch I'd done TV shows, radio spots, podcasts, commercials, interviews — and watched my own face go up on a Times Square billboard, emblazoned with the title of back-to-back Heisman winner.
How did it feel?
Obviously.
"Lit."
"Ah, you little punk. Gone to New York for what, a handful of days, and already coming back throwing around words like lit. Congratulations, you're a New Yorker now?"
"I am a New Yorker, technically."
"You're hilarious. An island hick is what you are."
"Oh, that's also fair."
"Kkkk. You're insane."
To be perfectly precise, I was a New Yorker plus a Hawaiian. Of the two, I liked the latter more, though.
My friends welcomed me back to campus with open arms, and right now we were sprawled out over fourteen ordered pizzas, easing through a lazy afternoon.
The rest ends today.
Starting tomorrow, it's Bowl game mode.
And in the week I was gone, a few internal issues had come up within the team.
For example —
"Wait, seriously? Van's leaving?"
"Yeah."
Things like that.
The Portal.
"He's been struggling the whole time, though."
Brock Vandagriff's departure was shaping up to be a painful loss for Coach Smart.
He'd believed the kid could grow into a great quarterback to one day lead Georgia, which was why he'd allowed guys like Stetson and Carson to transfer — and in the end, it had punched a huge hole in the quarterback position.
I'd heard he recruited a kid named Gunner Stockton, but he was only a 4-Star quarterback. If he wanted to secure the future properly, he'd probably need to land a 5-Star.
People were saying next year's QB class was loaded, sure — but handing the team over to a freshman is a colossal gamble.
Not that I'd know anything about that.
My being a freshman was only ever on paper.
"Coach has been a complete mess because of it. He's been off campus a lot lately, and I think he's even floating the idea of hijacking somebody."
"That won't be easy."
"Well, they're the ones with a problem, not us."
The friend who'd dropped a hand on my shoulder mid-sentence was Ladd McConkey, with Brock Bowers standing at his side.
Both were receivers so talented that if you just plugged a competent quarterback in behind them, Georgia could keep this offense humming for at least another year after I left for the NFL.
And for them, this mattered in another way too — a big junior season was the difference between getting drafted high or not.
Eighty percent of NFL players make an average of only eight million dollars over their entire careers.
That's obviously a huge sum, but a large chunk of it comes entirely from the rookie contract they sign on draft day. Every single slot you slide costs you at least a hundred grand, and when your career could be over in two years — four at best — you have to squeeze out every dollar you can.
Football is cruel like that. Again.
"I'll take care of you two through next year."
"Now that's reassuring. You hear that?"
Brock and Ladd grinned at Peter's smug remark, and just then the rest of the team started filing in through the front door we'd left cracked open.
The guys clocked the boxes stacked by the entrance and their faces lit up with surprise — those were the gifts I'd brought back.
After shooting the Nike ad in New York, I'd asked a contact to get me a bulk deal on shoes for the whole team at a steep discount.
Finding everyone's sizes wasn't hard. I just asked the equipment manager.
Anyway.
I'd picked each pair with the guys' tastes in mind, wrote every name on the outside of its box, and tucked a two-hundred-dollar bill inside each one as an early Christmas present.
"Dude, these are insane—! Thanks, Moi!"
"Merry Christmas in advance, y'all."
"Ooh-hoo~ two hundred bucks! Money really is the best."
"You're unbelievable."
I chucked a napkin at Jordan Davis, who was huffing the cash like some kind of deviant, and yelled at everyone to get over here and eat their damn pizza already.
Watching the room turn chaotic in an instant, I worried the food might run out and reached for my phone to order more — but right then Zamir and Sedrick walked in loaded down with takeout bags, and we all let out a collective cheer and threw a little party to close out the long holiday.
Starting tomorrow —
Life returns, and football comes with it.
Gladly.
December 20, 2021
United States — Athens, Georgia
University of Georgia
Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall
"Kkkkk."
"What are you cackling at?"
"Look at yourself."
"…."
What? What did I do?
Granted, catching my reflection in the lobby mirror, I could admit I looked like a guy who belonged somewhere up in Alaska.
But this morning was genuinely cold.
The temperature had dropped a full eight degrees overnight.
Even the weather forecast last night had called it a freak cold snap — the plunge had come that suddenly.
"What are you, an Eskimo?"
"Where'd you build your igloo?"
"…Shut up."
"Kkkkk."
I flashed a light middle finger at the teammates pouncing on me the second I walked in, then started peeling off my gloves and scarf. Sedrick, in the locker right beside mine, asked like it was some fascinating curiosity.
"How'd you even survive in New York?"
"…Good question."
"Huh?"
"Strangely enough, it was pretty bearable there."
"Really? It was warm?"
"I guess a little?"
That morning in Athens, the temperature sat at -2°C — the first sub-freezing December day in four years.
If I remembered right, New York mornings generally hovered somewhere between 0 and 3 degrees.
And yet it hadn't felt all that cold.
Was I just too busy to notice?
Or was it a state-of-mind thing?
…Who knows.
I changed into my workout gear, filed out of the practice locker room, and walked the corridor over to the House of Payne — where the conditioning coaches greeted us, every single one of them already wearing the shoes I'd given them.
Good look.
Very good look.
Unable to hold back the grin leaking across my face, I strolled over to Coach Scott Sinclair with my mouth corners hauled all the way up.
The team had five conditioning coaches in total, and this was the one who ran them all — the coordinator of the Strength & Conditioning department, so to speak.
"Those shoes look great on you, by the way."
"Haha. Extremely comfortable."
"That's Nike, isn't it."
"Oh no! Trying to get me to plug them too?"
"Could they have found a better model than me? The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced Nike picked the right man."
"Still got it, I see."
"Anyone would think we hadn't seen each other in ages."
"Hmm? Hadn't we?"
Ten days, tops.
"Right. Felt like months, though."
"I'll take that as 'I missed you.'"
"Haha. How about you? Did you keep training?"
"Of course. Two hours a day. Didn't skip a single one."
"Now that's impressive. Nothing to worry about, then."
"Yes, Sir."
The dawn workout kicked off at higher intensity than usual, and before long the heat radiating off our sweat-soaked bodies had filled the House of Payne to the rafters.
It hurt, obviously.
It was brutal, obviously.
But right now, I was savoring every second of this pain.
A Lot of Pain.
A Lot of Joy.
With the thought that greater pain brings greater joy, I threw myself into the business of running my body into the ground. Pushing to the absolute limit could wait for tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
"That's the one!"
"Whew— feels like the body's waking up, doesn't it?"
"HELL YES."
Refreshed. Cleansed. My mind felt razor-sharp.
Determined to finish out the rest of the season cleanly, I planned to shut out every piece of outside noise and put football first.
The Heisman was great. The number one pick was great.
But better than all of it was winning.
"One more set!!"
"LET'S GO---!!!"
"TO THE END!!!"
We kept pushing each other, encouraging and cracking the whip in equal measure, until the cold wind howling outside the building flinched and fled.
Granted, what actually chased that cold wind off was the sun, grown lazy with winter and sleeping in late. Still, I liked to believe it was us.
6:41 PM
United States — Cleveland, Ohio
FirstEnergy Stadium
VIP Suite
The Factory of Sadness.
That was the phrase Cleveland's famous talk-show host Mike Polk had once screamed into the void, and it had become the defining emblem of the Browns — a slogan that stood in for the entire franchise.
Dubbed the worst franchise in the NFL since the Super Bowl era began, the Browns also carried the absurd distinction of having fled their own city overnight.
For all the history and tradition of being the town where football was born, the team had spent decades embodying despair itself.
An owner too incompetent to know better, wielding the personnel authority a general manager should have held, and the head coaches and coordinators he personally picked — of course they drove the team into a ditch. But in doing so, they'd also shown the gridiron's most primal face more often than anyone could have asked for, and the stretch now remembered as the 'Baker Mayfield era' was no different.
After being shattered beyond recognition through countless exhibitions of incompetence, the team had limped through the 2016 season at 1-15.
And that still wasn't rock bottom.
The 2017 season: 16 losses.
A perfect losing season.
Watching the second winless team in the NFL since it moved to sixteen games, some three thousand die-hard Browns fans held a parade chanting "Perfect Season" — a spectacle too bitter for anyone to laugh at.
Then came, naturally, the number one overall pick, and Baker Mayfield — a rookie quarterback who'd arrived surrounded by controversy — handed the franchise its first real hope in years.
It was the moment that showed just how long the team had gone without an actual quarterback, and in the 2020 season the Browns made the playoffs for the first time in twenty-seven years, briefly closing the Factory of Sadness for business.
But that lasted the blink of an eye. Mayfield slumped again, and the Browns were manufacturing sorrow on a daily basis.
Today was no different.
"…You're really going to buy this team?"
"I am."
"…."
Jimmy Haslam, owner of the Cleveland Browns, studied the impeccably composed man beside him.
Issac L. Allison.
CEO of The A.G., Ohio's flagship conglomerate — and a man currently trying to buy the Cleveland Browns for three billion dollars, well above market price.
Valued at roughly 2.6 billion this past August before the season, the franchise had since slid to 2.2 billion, shoulder to shoulder with the Cincinnati Bengals and the Buffalo Bills at the bottom of the league.
Factor in Cleveland's painfully thin market and the team's dim outlook, and the head of The A.G.'s investment was, by any conventional logic, a little hard to accept. Buying Cincinnati or Baltimore outright might have made more sense.
"Hmm. Then let's meet tomorrow — I'll bring the lawyers."
"That works."
"Good. Until then."
Worried that Allison's mind might somehow change, Jimmy Haslam hurried out of the room — and a young woman promptly claimed the seat he'd vacated.
Issac L. Allison's expression, glacial moments ago, softened in an instant.
"Your old man finally owns a football team, sweetheart."
"Congratulations, Dad."
"Haha."
Beaming, Allison told his daughter to watch and see how he'd transform this franchise. His business instincts were exceptional, and his knowledge of football and sports management was every bit as sharp — lifting this hopeless team off the ground had become one of the great ambitions of his life.
He'd achieved everything a father, a husband, and a man could achieve. So for the final chapter, he'd decided to chase a dream from his youth.
"Cleveland is the birthplace of football itself, you know."
"Dad, I've been hearing that one since I was four."
"Haha. Have I?"
"…I believe you'll do it well, Dad."
"Thank you. That means a lot."
Years ago, this family had lost the woman they'd loved most — the spiritual heart of their home. Even now, with so much time passed, father and daughter still ached at her absence, and in that grief they leaned on each other more than ever, living their lives with quiet strength.
The truth was, his sudden leap into the football business came from the same place: his beloved wife, the mother of his child, had adored this sport.
And the team she'd cheered for, of course, was the Browns.
"What we need now is a competent general manager."
"Do you have anyone in mind?"
"A few. But it won't be easy."
"Take your time, Dad. Mom would gladly wait for you."
"…Yes. Catherine would have, without a doubt."
Next spring, the Browns change hands.
Will they keep manufacturing sadness?
Knowing nothing of any of this, the fans sat in the stands despairing over the hopeless football unfolding on the field below, industriously stamping out fresh grief tonight as they always did — asking themselves, over and over, how they'd ever become Browns fans in the first place, and cursing their own bad luck for it.
December 22, 2021
United States — Athens, Georgia
University of Georgia
Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall
Quarterbacks Room
Cincinnati, out of the American Conference, had been ranked among the elite since before the season started.
No single generational talent jumped off the roster, but that was because Luke Fickell — the man they called the Kirby Smart of the American Conference — had built a team of iron. You could see it with your own eyes: every year, the players came back sharper. This year was the strongest of the bunch.
8-0 in conference play.
13-0 overall.
Alongside us, Cincinnati was one of only two undefeated teams in the entire nation.
But.
"They're weak on the perimeter."
"Yeah."
"Can you rewind that for a second?"
"…"
That was what being in the American Conference got you. At the SEC level, they'd be generous to call them a mid-tier team. Clearly below Tennessee or Arkansas — probably around Missouri or Auburn-LSU territory.
"You see that right there?"
"Hm?"
I swiped the remote out of Coach Monken's hand and rolled back the play I'd just flagged.
"They're not rising with the snap before the sound of the clap, are they?"
"That's not a penalty."
"No. But they keep doing it."
"…"
What we were locked in on was the movement of Cincinnati's front seven.
Cincinnati ran a base 3-3-5 system, and whenever the offense lined up with just two receivers, they'd add an extra safety instead of reinforcing the box. That left them light up front, and naturally the holes started showing.
What patched it in the end was the defensive package built around blitzing with that extra safety — so if we spent the remaining time hunting for nothing but that pattern, cracking them shouldn't be hard. Their D-linemen's visible impatience looked like a gold mine too. We'd need to vary the play calls.
"Want to try some hard counts?"
"Not a bad idea."
People who don't know football wonder why the quarterback shouts Hike or Hut at all. The etymology is beside the point, so I'll leave it — but every one of those words exists to deceive the defense.
In a snap situation, reaction speed is everything. The defense can't move until the center actually delivers the ball to the quarterback, and if anyone jumps early, that's offsides — a five-yard penalty. Which is why most defensive coordinators teach their guys not to gamble on stealing a tenth of a second and drawing a flag, but to wait for a certain snap before attacking.
Turning that discipline back against them are the quarterback's cadence calls — Hike, Hut, Turbo, Set — and against jumpy defenders, a strategy built on shifting the timing works beautifully. Once the whole offense gets the snap count synced in the huddle, the odds of us making a mistake drop off a cliff.
Granted, it takes a little extra mental work.
Plenty of guys find that annoying.
But for a game or two? Fine.
And it's the Bowl game, after all.
"Easy. This is a playground to me."
"Park the arrogance. Prove it on the field."
"When have I ever not?"
"Hmph. You going to keep watching film of the next opponent or not?"
"Yes. It's barely ten o'clock. Let's keep going."
The quarterbacks room stayed lit deep into the night. Coach Monken and I didn't leave until well past midnight — around one in the morning.
"My treat for a late dinner?"
"As if I'd refuse."
What Monken and I had always felt less like coach and player and more like father and son — and the whole campus knew it. We walked into the dining hall, still glowing at that late hour, ordered whatever suited us, and I caught sight of the watch on Coach Monken's wrist and let out a satisfied little smile.
That was the birthday gift I'd given him last year. Nothing extravagant — about six hundred dollars. What do I get him this year? He's an impossible man to shop for.
"Coach, anything you've been wanting?"
"A trophy."
"No, besides that."
"What, are you my Santa Claus now?"
"You don't think I'm even better than that?"
"You're out of your mind is what you are."
"Kkkk."
I caught the crumpled tissue he hurled at me dead in my hands, laughed, and set it on the edge of the table. Then, wordlessly, we both turned to look out the window — and somewhere along the way, the whole campus had dressed itself up for Christmas.
"…It's that time of year already."
"It really is."
"…"
Coach Monken. Coach Smart too.
And the days left to spend with these teammates — a year and a half, at most.
"Coach."
"?"
"Merry Christmas."
"Heh. Yeah. Merry Christmas."
"Haha. Yes, Sir."
A night that felt like it was begging for carols to come pouring out of the walls — and right on cue, music drifted from the speakers.
This place really gets it.