Gladiators of the Gridiron

‘Great work, everyone,’ Coach Otsen said. ‘That’s EXACTLY how we need to play if we want to succeed today. But even so, let’s still take things slow on this drive, take your time, conserve your energy, and think of the bigger picture. Remember, marathon, not sprint.’

Tommy and Jackson were close enough, and the rest of the crowd was quiet enough, that they could hear Coach Otsen’s words, and Jackson was slightly glad that he wasn’t down there today—he’d never liked the longer races during his middle school days.

‘MAXIMUM energy conservation!’ Coach Vasquez yelled.

Coach Otsen chuckled dryly. ‘Yes, so be the opposite of Coach Vasquez here.’

The players laughed quietly before being sent back out onto the field. Most of them were happy to nickel and dime their way downfield, however, they still had to overcome this new zone the Hawks were using against them.

Forget a double team, Kenny felt like he was being triple-teamed. It was like he was stuck in the Bermuda Triangle, and no matter which way he went, a Hawk was waiting for him.

For the first pass, it was all Kenny could do to break it up and stop a Hawk from intercepting it.

When he got back to the huddle, he nudged Pete slightly. ‘Hey, don’t force it in there like that, if there isn’t space don’t worry about it. Giving them the ball right back is the last thing we need right now.’

‘I know! My bad, damn…’ Pete grumbled, head down.

‘It’s all good. We’re all here to help. Let’s win this.’ Lonnie cast a smile around the huddle.

‘Yeah!’ came the enthusiastic cries from the other team members.

Again, they went for a pass on the next play, however, instead of looking Kenny’s way again, Pete targeted Lonnie this time.

On offence, Lonnie’s tall stature made him a natural fit for the TE position, and he was much more careful and patient, more aligned with his sloth-like nature off the field. He was perfect for picking apart the weaknesses in a Zone defence and finding the empty gaps. Which is exactly what he did.

He observed the defence, as he had been doing all game, and found the right moment to slip into the gap just as it opened. Pete found him and got the ball into him. Lonnie caught it securely on his chest, then whirled, showing off his surprising speed once more as he burst forward for a first down and an 11-yard gain.

A round of applause came from the coaches on the Titans’ sideline—all bar Coach Knight, who hadn’t even cracked a smile—and the players took their time huddling back up and preparing for the next set of downs.

They started this series off with a run—a long, stretching run to the outside. It only resulted in 3 yards, but it was better than nothing and set up their next play beautifully.

They went for the exact same thing, except Petey held onto the ball this time instead of giving it off to Isaac, and as he whirled around, his eyes scanned downfield, finding one Titan all on his lonesome—it was Freddy.

See, Freddy was always somewhat of a dark horse within these games, like he was the Titans' secret weapon.

On defence, he was just there to cover over the top for Nick as part of their zone defence, but even then, his zone was one of the smaller parts of their defence, and it was Lonnie who was forced to look after a large portion of that side of the field as well as the middle.

Then, on offence, Freddy usually had even less of a role and impact. How he was used in most plays, was only as a block and distraction, someone there to take up a zone or a defender and keep them occupied, or apply an extra bit of protection when it came to the run.

Even on passing plays he rarely ran a route, just so he could set up moments like these, where, for all intents and purposes, it had looked like a run in the beginning, so Freddy’s man had left him behind completely, only for it to turn into a play-action pass, and once the CB realised that, Freddy was already well downfield.

Petey fired the ball over to Freddy, finding him right where he needed to be 10 yards down, hugging the sideline closely. Most defenders didn’t even notice he was there until the ball was in his hands, and then the chase was on.

Of course, they were a step behind thanks to being caught off guard, so Freddy was able to scramble forward for an additional 10 yards and bring the play to a 20-yard gain overall before he stepped out of bounds, using the safety of the boundary line to avoid any hit from his opponents.

Freddy darted out just in front of the Golden Hawks’ bench and stopped only a couple of steps from Coach Fowler. He smiled awkwardly at the tall, thin man, feeling as if some kind of X-ray machine was inspecting him.

‘Uhh… h-hi,’ Freddy said. Coach Fowler didn’t answer.

Freddy handed the ball to an official and then jogged back to the Titans’ huddle, keeping his head down, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up after his encounter with the Golden Hawks’ coach.

Coach Fowler scowled as he watched Freddy go. It seemed there was another tricky little Titan that he needed to keep his eyes on.

And after Freddy’s big play, it gave the defence something else to think about during the rest of the drive. No longer could his man be so careless, or treat him as if he wasn’t a threat on his own merit.

Now, even if they wouldn’t use Freddy for the rest of the game as the primary target of a play, it made his role as a distracter, as an extra body, even more effective.

And by now, with the extra time bought by his teammates, Kenny believed he had found a weakness within the defence being used to contain him.

‘Hey, Petey, look for me, alright?’ he said. ‘I think I’ve figured them out.’

‘You got it, amigo. Let’s do this.’

They broke away from their huddle again, getting into position. Petey gave Kenny a nod, and then the ball was snapped.

Kenny ambled forward at half-speed. He feinted to the outside, going full speed for a second before he slowed back down, and using Lonnie’s earlier catch as an example, he slowly drifted right into the sweet spot between the zone defenders surrounding him, the only safe spot within that Bermuda Triangle.

The window was small, but Petey saw it, and he trusted Kenny. He whipped his hips around and flung the ball over to Kenny. It barely zipped past outstretched hands, narrowly avoiding their fingertips before it found Kenny’s stomach and he wrapped his arms tightly around it.

Kenny backed into the defender that closed in on him, forcing his way through them for a couple of extra yards after the catch. It was a gain of 9 after he was brought down, but it was bigger than just that, he’d figured them out, and more catches were on the way.

The Titans began to work their way downfield steadily, still taking their time with every play, and eventually, they’d make it to their opponent’s 15-yard line before they were met with firmer resistance.

Again, the Golden Hawks almost came away with an interception after they adjusted how their defenders marked Kenny.

There were still three defenders in his general area, but now only two were working in Zones, and one was specifically tasked with matching him man-to-man.

There was a Safety keeping watch over the top for any deep routes that Kenny would’ve wanted to run, as well as another CB waiting lower down in the middle, so that the defender marking Kenny had inside help as well, and practically only had to worry about things underneath—which he could sit on—or stuff to the outside, which he could use the sideline to squeeze Kenny against, so there was no room for such passes.

With Kenny locked down once more, the Titans couldn’t break through that last line of defence in the condensed field, and were once again forced to settle for a field goal. Though, as long as they kept this up, they’d take the lead eventually.

The kick was booted through successfully, and the score ticked to 7–6 in the Golden Hawks’ favour.

‘They sure are marking Kenny closely. Looks like they did their homework, or found out something from that first meeting,’ Tommy said, watching the Titans come over to the sideline for a quick breather.

Jackson nodded.

‘How do you think he should get around that defence?’ Tommy asked.

‘I…I don’t know if he can by himself… he needs someone else to run through and distract one or both of the help defenders, doesn’t he?’

‘That might be the best way, but he still has to beat his own man then, and let’s say for now, no one helps him, how would you do it by yourself?’

‘Hmm…’ Jackson needed a moment to think about it.

Whilst the Titans were taking their time to set up for the kickoff after their score, over on the other sideline, Coach Fowler called together his defence.

‘You are doing well to hold them back to only small scores, but that is not good enough. We must stop them completely, and the first step, is to clip THAT one’s wings,’ he said, pointing across the field at Kenny.

Kenny felt a chill run down his spine and almost choked on the Gatorade he was gulping down. He coughed and wiped his mouth, looking around.

‘There isn’t much you can do,’ Jackson said. ‘You need to target the outside, but it's hard to do that when the defender is sitting on your outside shoulder the whole time because he knows he’s got help inside.’

‘But you have to get out there,’ Tommy said.

They watched the kickoff, and once again the Golden Hawks ran it out and ran the Titans around for as long as they could before being tackled down at the 17-yard line.

‘You just… have to sell the inside route,’ Jackson said, ‘a real short, sharp one, like a slant or something, you have to sell it so good, that your defender can’t help but jump out to stop it, and then you need to slip by him, over the top, but not TOO far over the top so the Safety can’t get down in time to break it up.’

‘Hahaha, sounds pretty hard, doesn’t it? But it’s doable … you can always get out of any tricky situation as long as you’re good enough, AND you trust your QB enough to make that throw. But that’s only if your teammates can’t help you out, which they should.’

Jackson nodded again, then watched as the Golden Hawks’ rapid-fire offence took flight once again, determined not to fail this time and get back on the scoreboard after their last drive ended in failure.

They came out, as expected, running through their plays quickly, and without any huddle. However, this time, they opened the gates with a play-action pass that was a Flea Flicker—a play where the ball was actually handed to the RB, but before they reached the line of scrimmage, they’d stop and turn back, “flicking” the ball back to the QB so he could throw it forward instead.

This brought them a gain of 12 yards, and they didn’t stop there. Every play they ran for this drive was exclusively a trick play of some kind, even if those tricks were as simple as Draw plays, or regular Play-Action passes, all the way to things like Jet Sweep reversals where another Receiver from the opposite side of the first sweep would run across and get a second handoff from the initial runner, to plays out of the Wildcat formation, where Junior wouldn’t even line up as QB, and the RB would receive the snap instead.

Not only were the Golden Hawks attacking the Titans physically with their rapid pace and use of no-huddle, but now—by using all these trick plays—they were putting a significant mental strain on them as well.

However, these tricks were a double-edged sword, and while they worked in some instances, other times they backfired and failed completely, or even worse—cost the Hawks precious yards.

As such, whilst the Golden Hawks initially wormed their way downfield thanks to these tricks, once they’d shown their hand, and the Titans had seen through them, their progress was halted.

Still, the Hawks were able to kick through a field goal, and push their lead back out to a SLIGHTLY more comfortable margin of 4 points. At least another field goal wouldn’t take the lead from them this time, and the Titans would need to score a touchdown if they wanted to shoot down these Hawks.

As time wound down to the final five minutes of the first half, the Titans had the ball again, looking to build off of the success of their first two drives, starting this one at the 33-yard line, after another good kickoff return from Kenny.

However, after nearly a half-hour of non-stop action, the drain of trying to keep up with the Golden Hawks’ offence was taking its toll.