Gladiators of the Gridiron

The ball was caught just short of the Panthers’ endzone, so the returner quickly scurried off downfield, but his attempt at a return was short-lived, and he didn’t get very far, only reaching the 20-yard line.

‘Let’s go, Dons!’ JJ led the march onto the field for the Dons’ defence.

Ty took his usual position and then looked across the field to where Deshaun would usually be. It was strange to see someone else in his place.

The Dons’ formation was set close to the line of scrimmage so that their LBs could stop the run as quickly as possible. While everyone else was set to play Zone defence, Ty would stick to Man, as he always did.

Sean was the man to line up in front of Ty.

Ty tilted his head, disappointed. ‘Oh. I was hoping you had some secret weapon on your bench.’

Sean scoffed. ‘‘Sup, fucker. Don’t worry, I’m all the weapon we need to handle a scrawny little shit like you.’

The ball was snapped, but Sean seemed disinterested as he came forward to impede Ty’s path and block him.

Ty’s eyes darted to the middle of the field, where he saw Malik running towards him. Anthony was a couple of yards below Malik but further forward as they ran parallel to one another.

Ty shoved Sean aside with a ferocity that surprised the larger boy. He sprinted towards Malik, causing him to pitch the ball over to Anthony instead.

Just as Ty was about to turn and give chase to Anthony, he heard JJ’s voice. ‘I got outside!’ JJ rushed by, tracking down Anthony and dragging him to the grass for only a short gain.

Ty watched, a sense of relief washing over him. That had been so easy. With that kind of help, and even the simple communication, it was a breath of fresh air. He remembered back to his time trying to work together with Deshaun dealing with screen passes and how much of a nightmare that was. “I was playing three against one.” But working with JJ, from just one play he could already completely rely on him.

“Who cares if Deshaun isn’t here?”

‘Yo! Watch your fucking block, Sean,’ Malik shouted as he went over to help Anthony back up.

Sean flipped them off on his way to the huddle.

The Dons were happy, breaking away from their huddle in a similar formation, but wary if the Panthers were going to run the same play again to try and catch them off-guard. Who wouldn’t expect a different okay after putting a stop to their supposed best weapon?

‘Red, hike!’ Malik took the ball, but this time he didn’t look to run. His eyes flashed over the middle after a short drop back, and he let loose with a pass to their TE.

Again, JJ was right there, and he broke up the short pass. The rest of the Dons got around JJ quickly, congratulating him on his back-to-back plays.

Sean stormed over to Malik. ‘Aye, what the fuck? You throw it, but you throw to fucking Sam? What about me?’

‘Maybe if you would’ve blocked before, I might’ve passed it to YOU.’

Sean scrunched up his face. ‘Fine, I’ll fucking block, just throw it to me afterwards!’

Malik shook his head, lining up again.

‘Red hike!’ He took the ball, this time running away from Sean and Ty’s side of the field.

JJ had been lined up closer to Sean and Ty so it took him longer to reach the other side, and that was only exacerbated when Malik pitched the ball out to Anthony again.

Anthony was able to spin away from one tackle, and got to the first down marker just before JJ caught up with him and shoved him out of bounds.

‘That’s what I’m talking about. Wooo!’ Anthony cheered in JJ’s face as he brushed by him and returned to the Panthers’ huddle. An official gave him a warning about taunting, but he didn’t seem to care.

The next play was another Read Option, this time, instead of going back to the side that had just been so successful for them, they hoped to keep the Dons off-balanced by going back to Ty’s side.

This time, Sean did a slightly better job of blocking, and held Ty up for longer.

Malik turned upfield just as Ty slipped away from Sean. Ty lunged to the side, a long arm wrapping around Malik while the other stretched up to block off the pitch.

Malik thought about dumping the ball off to Anthony, but that hand in the air made him second guess it, and he soon found himself face-first in the turf.

They’d only gotten a short gain again. ‘Dammit!’ Malik pushed himself up.

‘Stop running and pass, pussy,’ Ty said, heading back to the Dons’ huddle.

Malik scowled at the back of Ty’s head.

Sean jogged over. ‘Hey! That wasn’t my fault that time. Hurry up and pass the fucking ball to me already.’

‘Yeah yeah, don’t worry. I’m throwing it to you. Just embarrass that stupid fucker for me.’

‘Hah, too easy. I’ll shut that annoying little shit up.’

Before the snap, Malik looked over to Sean and Ty, hate filling his eyes as he regarded Ty. Everyone on the field could see where the ball was going to go.

Ty grinned. This was his chance.

After the snap, Ty feinted with his hand, but Sean showed no reaction, running ahead, and then after a slight shimmy, he broke towards the outside at a slant.

Ty stuck with him easily, eyes turning back towards Malik and the ball before Sean even raised his hand calling for it.

Malik heaved the ball into the air, putting a bit too much oompf behind it as it skyrocketed well over both Sean and Ty’s heads into the crowd.

Both Sean and Malik cursed, but Ty seemed the angriest of all, teeth grinding loudly. He had been in the perfect position to intercept the ball! Only for it to be one of the shittest passes he’d seen.

Neither of his opponents seemed to realise just how fortunate they were that the pass was uncatchable by anyone. Ty could only wonder how they could be so blind.

‘Bro, I’m not ten feet tall, how am I supposed to catch that?’

‘Yeah, well maybe if you got open I could throw it properly!’

Sean and Malik argued briefly before the huddle broke apart again.

The next pass went towards the opposite side of the field, and while the other Receiver was able to reel it in, they had to stretch out to do so, halting their momentum. Because of this, they were tackled just before they could get enough yards for another first down.

The Panthers would be punting.

Ty stayed out on the field to receive and return the punt, but Cole came up to him and rather awkwardly informed him that Coach Long wanted to see him on the bench.

‘What? I’m just about to go there right after this, can’t he wait?’

Cole shrugged. ‘Coach’s orders. He told me to come take the return.’

Ty looked over Cole’s shoulder, and sure enough, Coach Long was beckoning him over to the bench. He growled in annoyance but made his way to the bench, stopping before the coach.

‘You wanted to see me?’

‘I heard you had a little bit of an… incident during the coin toss. Is that right?’

Ty grimaced. ‘…Yes.’

Coach Long shook his head. ‘That was my fault, you weren’t ready for that and I shouldn’t have sent you out there. But, because of your mistake, we could’ve had to give the opposition the ball to start BOTH halves. I’m sorry, but you’re not taking the returns today, Cole will handle that responsibility.’

‘What?! I didn’t even … nothing happened, we’re still getting the ball in the second half!’

‘That’s not important, it’s the principle. You need to learn to treat your opponents and the officials with more respect. The decision’s been made, Tyrese. Just sit down.’

Ty grumbled but sat down on the bench.

The punt wobbled out of bounds, and there wasn’t any return to be made anyhow.

The Dons offence took to the field.

Anthony and Sean were also out there to play defence for the Panthers, as Anthony manned up against Benny, and Sean was matching Cole.

Jay took a deep breath as he stood behind the O-Line, looking around at his teammates lined up in their formation. He was concerned about not having Stephen or Chris out there with him, but he’d put his trust in Benny, Cole, and Cameron to step up. At least it was reassuring to have JJ behind him.

His eyes flicked to the scoreboard. It was also a lot easier to keep calm while both teams were yet to score a point. “We should change that.”

The first play was a handoff to Cameron who ran it straight up the gut, following behind JJ for a gain of 4 yards. Not bad, but not great either.

It looked like the Panthers were a more defensive-minded team. Even without someone like Mike from the last game, just from one play, Jay could tell they were a tougher unit overall.

He took a deep breath, they still made good progress. Gaining four yards was a good release of any pressure they might’ve had. They just needed to keep it going.

They motioned Cole across to the other side of the field, and Sean stuck with him. Seeing that the Panthers were using Man defence, Jay hit Benny over the middle on his drag route for another decent but somewhat short gain.

They went back to Cameron who gave a good run and picked up the first down for them.

However, when they handed it to Cameron again after that, he was stuffed right at the line for no gain at all.

‘Mierda. That was my bad, I missed my block.’ JJ helped Cameron back up, then slapped Jay on the shoulder. ‘Let’s get them on the next play.’

Jay nodded. On the next play, he’d pass the ball to Cole as he broke through to the middle of the field, however, perhaps still accustomed to throwing to Stephen and his massive frame, the ball sailed out of reach of Cole.

Jay was just thankful there hadn’t been a Safety over the middle otherwise it would’ve flown straight to them.

The Dons were staring down the barrel of a third down and had yet to gain a single yard during this set of plays.

Jay wet his lips. The next play would be their last chance this drive. His eyes found Benny, his most reliable target still out there.

And, after seeing that the Panthers’ Safeties liked to stay out wide in their two high Zone, the middle was open to exploit, and that’s exactly where Benny was sent.

Benny charged up the middle of the field, and Jay lobbed the pass up to him, this time not overshooting anything as he was right on the money, Benny would just have to wrap his hands around the ball and …

And Anthony got his mitts in the way, wrenching the ball away from Benny as they tumbled to the ground. Neither of them came down with a catch as the ball bounced away from them both and fell to the grass.

While it wasn’t an interception, the Dons would still have to punt.

Ty stood up on the sidelines, hands shaking as he watched the offence come crawling off the field, defeated. Without Stephen and Chris here, he’d have to rely even less on the offence that he normally did.

“You’re the offence now,” he told himself, “you have to do the scoring. You have to pull all the weight.”

He was restless as he watched the ensuing punt, which ended with a fair catch from the Panther’s returner.

Ty rushed out onto the field, anxious to get to his position and turn the tides of this game.

He’d have to wait a little longer, however, as the first play the opposition ran was another Read Option to the side where Deshaun would’ve normally been.

Again they picked up a gain big enough for a first down as again, JJ had to run just a little too far to properly stop them on that side.

Ty wondered; if Deshaun was here, would he do a better job at stopping the runs to that side? He shook that pointless question from his mind. There was no use worrying about such things when there was no changing them and they were out of his control.

But, seeing as the Panthers were exploiting one side of the field and having much more success running that way, the defence—all of the LBs including JJ, and the D-Line—shifted towards that side of the field before the snap.

Spotting this, Malik ran the other way, heading for Ty who was held up by Sean, but once again got the better of that blocking match.

However, with backup a little further away, Malik pitched the ball quickly to Anthony who was able to pick up 5 yards before someone scrambled over to push him out.

‘Ugh.’ Sean dragged his feet on his way back to the huddle, but then he suddenly perked up. ‘Oh! Okay, so if you won’t THROW it to me, can we at least try THAT?’ he asked Malik.

Malik looked him over and then checked out the Dons’ huddle. ‘Alright. I think we can try it. Just make sure you get a lot of yards with this, you know it doesn’t work good after someone’s seen it.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know. I promise I’ll like, get a touchdown with this or something.’

‘Yeah right. Just get a first down at least, idiot.’

Their huddle broke apart and Sean had a grin when he lined up opposite Ty.

‘I don’t wanna see those ugly, yellow teeth, so stop smiling like a dumbass.’

‘Like you’re one to talk with those fucked up teeth.’

Ty flashed his shark-like teeth. ‘All natural, nothing fucked up about them.’

Sean shuddered. ‘There’s nothing natural about those things.’

Ty narrowed his eyes. Inside, he was excited, however. If that idiot was so happy, surely it meant another pass was coming their way right? That meant another chance to steal the ball.

Unfortunately, when the ball was snapped, it looked like just another Option play, with Malik running towards Ty once again.

However, this time, Sean gave very little effort to blocking Ty. Ty hurried forward to tackle Malik, having completely ignored Sean who instead backed off, and actually ran back to Malik as well.

Just before Ty could tackle Malik, he passed the ball off to Sean, who sprinted across the field, catching the entire defence unaware as he reversed the field, running against the grain. Defenders scrambled to stop and turn around, but by the time they caught Sean, he had gained 16 yards with his trick run.

‘Fuck yes! Finally, you see what happens when you give me the ball?’ Sean laughed, grinning even wider as he made it back to the huddle.

‘Yeah, good job. Don’t expect that to happen again.’

He was still grinning as he nudged Malik. ‘Well, don’t you think I deserve a pass now?’

Malik rolled his eyes. ‘Oh my god, if you stop fucking bitching about it, fine.’

‘Yes!’ Sean struggled to hide his excitement as he took his position in the formation.

Ty stared at him coldly. ‘You too much of a fucking pussy to face me in the air? You just gonna run away all game?’

Sean shook his head. ‘Don’t worry, little shit. I’ll give you exactly what you’re asking for. Watch out, I think this one’ll be a touchdown.’

Ty’s eyes gleamed. His head turned to Malik as he stood as close to Sean as was legally allowed before the snap.

As soon as the ball hit Malik’s hands, Ty thrust his hand out, knocking the wind from Sean’s unsuspecting chest, staggering him.

Sean struggled forward, gasping for air as he ran. Ty kept a hand brushing against Sean’s hip, running with him; eyes still on Malik.

Sean needed space. He stopped and shifted his hips to turn back. Malik was nowhere near ready to throw—Ty didn’t bite. Sean started forward again, sprinting down the sideline.

Ty finally turned his hips, sprinting alongside him, head turned back over his shoulder.

The ball came flying towards them. Ty’s eyes lit up like a shark that had just spotted its wounded, floundering prey. He turned back around quickly, planting his feet firmly. He launched himself into the sky, arms extended outward.

Sean turned back, bewildered as Ty was already in the air, the ball just about to hit his outstretched hands. He stumbled, grabbing onto Ty’s hips, trying to drag him down.

Ty latched onto the ball, fingers gripping it like teeth sinking into flesh. He was pulled to the ground, but he still held onto the ball.

An official ran in, signalling and confirming the interception.

Ty’s sharp grin shone in the bright lights.