Gladiators of the Gridiron

Ty’s eyes narrowed. ‘I promise you, your bitch ass will NEVER beat me. Not in your entire life.’

Thirteen seemed unfazed.

‘Alfie!’

Thirteen looked over to the QB as they called to him.

‘Zebra. Ze-bra!’

Aflie gave a thumbs up.

Ty turned his hateful gaze towards the QB. ‘I mean it. In fact, I bet that you won’t even get a catch this game.’

Annoyance flickered across Alfie’s features, but he said nothing.

The ball was snapped, Alfie hopped forward and then burst sidewards, hurrying through the middle of the field in a shallow cross.

Ty was right behind him and as the ball came their way, he easily stretched his long arm around Alfie and swatted it away before a catch could be made.

Both boys slid to the ground with Ty on top of Alfie. Ty made sure to push Alfie into the ground as he stood up. ‘No catches. I told you.’

Alfie’s teammates helped him up and he dusted himself off. He smiled at Ty. ‘Good D, but there’s still an hour left. We’ll see who’s on top at the end.’

Ty laughed, returning to his huddle. Alfie should be a comedian instead of a footballer, he thought. He knew this game would be decided well before time was up if he had anything to say about it.

The next play was a run. Ty wasn’t exactly ready for that kind of play, but it wasn’t headed his way, nor did Alfie show any proficiency with blocking. From the short struggle, the two seemed to be equally matched in strength, or close enough, so Ty’s much greater reach was the deciding factor that gave him a large advantage in a battle of blocks.

The run play went up the centre of the field and ended in a gain of a few yards. It was better than nothing, but it still didn’t really help the Saints that much as third down came around and they still had 7 yards to go.

The next play was another pass. Alfie ran forward, struggling through Ty’s tough press until he got around 10 yards downfield, then he curled back around and ran towards the QB for a couple of yards.

Ty was on him like they were stuck together, and there was no room for a pass. However, the ball was thrown to the opposite side of the field, where a similar route was run but to much better success against Deshaun.

The catch was made, and it just barely earned the Saints a first down after Deshaun recovered and made the tackle.

Ty groaned and rolled his eyes, though he could hardly hear himself over the explosion of noise from the crowd. JJ hurried over, helping Deshaun onto his feet. ‘It’s all good, Dee, you’ll get the next one.’

‘Yeah, fuck. I’m sorry. I ain’t fallin’ for that dumb shit again though.’

‘I know you won’t.’ The two fist-bumped as they hurried back to the huddle. Deshaun answered Ty’s glare with one of his own, but neither boy said anything to one another.

When Deshaun got back into position, he bounced on his toes for a moment and rubbed at his legs, trying to get further warmed up and into the flow of things after missing last week's game and some practices.

The crowd was still cheering and chanting loudly, but as the home team lined up in position and got ready for the snap, the crowd faded into silence.

The ball was snapped. Alfie took a step forward before shooting across Ty’s face in a slant.

The pass was whipped in quickly, but Ty pounced and once again his long arm shot out and spiked the ball down before Alfie could get his hands on it.

This time, the two bumped into one another, and Alfie was pushed into the wall of bodies that made up the O-Line and D-Line.

Ty simply shook his head and jogged away.

On the next play, the Saints tried some play-action, faking a run before looking deep.

Alfie didn’t even pretend to block as he tried to dart past Ty, but Ty never even thought about the run, only having eyes for his man—his prey. He was glued to Alfie’s hip once more, but thankfully for the Saints, the eventual pass soared over both their heads and out of bounds, well out of reach.

Ty snarled and ground his teeth, frustrated by the interception chance that had been wasted because of an overly sloppy throw.

The Saints were pushed to third down, and they hadn’t gained a single yard yet on this set of downs. So they tried to catch the Dons off guard with a Draw play, posturing for a pass at first, before handing it off to the RB.

Whilst the D-Line might’ve been fooled, and a path was opened up in the middle of the field for the RB to run through initially, JJ wasn’t tricked so easily and was all over it.

He stuffed them as they only got halfway to the first down marker, and that ended the Saints’ first drive.

Cole was still on return duty as the coaches were being extremely careful with Chris in his recovery from the concussion, but this return, in particular, ended in a fair catch anyway.

And then it was the Dons’ turn on offence. With the Dons having access to all their firepower this week, it meant that JJ stayed on the sidelines when the offence was on the field … for now.

‘How do those legs feel?’ Jay asked Chris as they huddled up.

‘Like rockets.’

‘Ready to stretch them out and see how you hold up.’

Chris nodded, a determined look on his face. ‘Send me straight up the middle. I’m not afraid, and I’m not some fragile little egg that needs to be protected.’

‘Duuude … we know.’ Jay placed a hand on Chris’s shoulder.

The crowd was thunderous, their chants of “defence” almost rumbled the very ground the players stood on. To start their offensive campaign, the Dons sent Chris up the middle for what they hoped would be a powerful run.

However, it started poorly as he ran into the back of one of his Linemen, and ended up not gaining any yards from it. Thankfully, he didn’t lose yards, but he was still mad as he got helped back to his feet.

‘Shit, my bad guys. I missed the hole. I saw it at the last second but couldn’t cut into it. I let you down.’

The O-Line laughed, slapping him on the back. ‘All good, brother, we’ll just make it bigger next time.’ They were still in high spirits, even as the crowd only got louder after the defence’s success.

Next, the Dons decided to shake off any rust that Stephen might’ve had from him missing last week’s game.

He ran a short In route, and was open, yet when he cut inside, the pass was a little behind him, and he was slow to react. The ball whizzed past his shoulder and he only got a hand to it as he tried to twist back and catch it.

Thankfully, the deflection caused it to fall harmlessly out of bounds rather than bounce into the waiting arms of a defender elsewhere on the field.

However, the Dons were staring down a three-and-out as they had yet to gain any yards and were quickly on to third down.

Coach Long and Norman cooked up a quick slant to Cole, and while the initial catch wouldn’t earn them the first down, they hoped with his elusiveness, Cole would be able to pick up the first down using his legs after the catch.

The Dons lined up again, trying to shut out the crowd’s roars. Jay rubbed his hands off on his pants and got ready. ‘Seeet. Hut.’ The ball was snapped and after only taking a step back, Jay turned and flicked the ball towards where he expected Cole to be.

Cole didn’t let him down, and was right where he needed to be, catching the ball on his chest. Unfortunately, he hadn’t gained enough space from his opponent, and after he made the catch he was swiftly tackled for only a minimal gain.

They were nowhere near the spot required for a first down, so there was nothing left for the Dons to do but punt the ball back and let their defence have another crack at things.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ Coach Long welcomed the boys back to the bench warmly, his voice straining to be heard over the jubilant celebrations from the crowd.

Ty’s skull pounded like someone was smashing a baseball bat against a drum set. He couldn’t even hear himself think over this noise.

But, after the Saints’ short punt return, he stood and was sent back onto the field. As he jogged away from the bench, he heard Coach Hoang’s voice, but couldn’t make out what he had said.

It wasn’t important anyway, Ty knew what he needed to do. No amount of noise was going to distract him from his job, from his promise.

Standing in the centre of the field, the swirling storm of noise was its loudest. He’d have to scream to trash talk Alfie as the boy stood across from him, so Ty decided it wasn’t even worth the effort and kept his mouth shut.

Then, when the Saints were ready to snap the ball, the noise would fade, and the air would be silent for a moment. It was the calm before the storm.

The ball was snapped and instantly the cheers started back up as the players on the field burst into motion.

This time it was a handoff to the RB. He rushed to the outside, towards Deshaun’s side of the field, and picked up a gain of 4 yards—a good way to start a drive.

The crowd was elated, of course. Ty cast a gaze all around the stands surrounding the field. He needed to shut them up before he went deaf. They were irritating, screaming like banshees over the tiniest thing. He knew they were pathetic and that they’d never accomplished anything if they were this ecstatic over any small victory.

He needed to remind them how far beneath him they were.

Silence overtook the field once more, for a few brief seconds there was a peaceful bliss until the ball was snapped.

Ty backpedalled as Alfie ran ahead. Alfie stuttered, he started to go towards the centre of the field. No! Ty didn’t bite—it was a feint. Aflie’s real goal was the outside.

When Alfie did cut to the outside, Ty was right on top of it. His head shot around to watch the QB now instead. He saw the pass coming before it had even left the QB’s hand.

They really made it too easy for him sometimes.

It was like the ball was thrown directly to Ty, as if he was always the one meant to receive it, as if it had been drawn up that way.

When the ball hit his hands, it fitted into them perfectly, like it was made for him, like this was the most natural thing in the world.

A dejected gasp went up from everywhere in the crowd as Ty picked the ball off. And then he was storming along the grass, flying over it as he galloped away with the ball.

No one could catch him.

He crossed into the endzone and angrily threw the ball into the stands. Then he stopped and he stood there, listening.

Listening to the sweet sound of silence.