03-04-2018, 01:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-04-2018, 11:37 PM by Supersquare04.)
As the cliche goes, winning cures all ills. And here in the Yeti locker room, we haven’t been doing a whole lot of winning lately. That means plenty of ills without a cure. As you saw in Carlito Crush’s exposee recently, this locker room is not the happiest of places to be. Whether I agree with Carlito or not, there are some worthwhile things that he said in his article. I’m going to set the record straight a little bit.
Carlito’s passion is one that all of us share. But it’s also one that some of us are more likely to air within earshot of the people involved, rather than throwing it out for the public to see. Don’t get me wrong; I understand why Carlito felt the need to go public here. He’s sick of nothing changing, and he wants to put the people responsible -- all of us -- on blast to try and get something done.
And he’s not wrong. We have been languishing in futility for too long now. Since the Noble scandal, this team has been scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to get a win or two each season and being happy with it. We’re improving. Trust the process. We’re headed in the right direction. We’re just young. The free agent market will pick up. We’re having good drafts. We’re only a player or two away. Next year, that is going to be our season. We’ve come up with, and believed, every excuse in the book. But what it comes down to, week after week, season after season, is this: we’re playing like hot garbage. We’ve been playing like garbage for years. And we can’t blame the coaches. We can’t blame the GMs. We can’t even blame our teammates.
Can we really blame people like Smallwood and Smitfter coming after us on a regular basis? They’re criticizing our play. They’re not mischaracterizing us as people (most of the time), and they’re not dehumanizing us or being unfair. They’re saying we suck, and that’s because we suck. I don’t want to admit it; the coaches and staff don’t want to admit it; and the rest of my teammates sure as hell don’t want to admit it. But it’s the honest, unmitigated, unfiltered truth. We all know the problems. And now, thanks to our second-loudest locker room presence (we all know what Nick is like), the rest of you know, too. There’s no going back. It’s time to move onto solutions.
The tack that I’m choosing to take, in my limited experience in the league, is one of personal responsibility. I’m playing like crap. I was the third overall draft pick. I was expected to come in here and help -- to be a key piece in -- turning this team around. Has our defense played a little better in recent seasons? Maybe, a little bit. Has it outpaced our offense? Maybe, but statistically it doesn’t seem that apparent. We’re hardly scoring at all, and we’re allowing lots of points. We’re at the bottom of the league in both categories, most of the time. And this is on me. It’s probably not me alone, but that doesn’t matter.
I have to do better. I have to work harder. I have two problems. One: I haven’t been earning that money for training and equipment by taking those lucrative sponsorship deals. The truth is, it’s hard for me to believe in something strongly enough to want to put my name and face with it. I haven’t been demanding big contracts. But it’s time for me to put my pride aside and buckle down. How could it be that taking small contracts is hurting my team? How could the opposite be letting go of my pride? Because it’s impacting my play on the field. I need to step up. I need to earn that money so I can keep up with my teammates in the offseason. I need to earn that money so I can pay for the extra training sessions every week. Two: I’ve been resting on my laurels and continuing to do the things I’m best at. I haven’t been hitting the weights as hard as I could, because I tell myself that spending more time in the film room makes just as big an impact. I’m working on my head; I’m working on my hands. I’m doing these things because they come naturally to me. But it’s time for a change. These things might help make me a decent player, but they don’t necessarily make me a better linebacker, and they don’t necessarily make me a better fit for my team. I want to be smashing those offensive line bots by smashing the sleds in practice. I need to be sprinting around the field like a goddamned gazelle by spending my extra time running sprints around the building with Boss. I need to change my philosophy.
These are the things that I can do, personally. These are the ways I’m responsible for our team’s record. These are the ways that I am hurting my teammates, and I’m sick of doing it.
So to my teammates, to my fans, to my coaches, and to everyone who has believed in me along the way, I apologize. I will do better. I will make our team better, as much as I possibly can. I’m not leaving it to Boss and Johnathon anymore. This city deserves a winner, and we haven’t been one. If it takes dying on the field and going off on my shield, so to speak, I’m going to do it. And I hope the rest of my team will, too. It’s time to put together something that we all want:
A winner.
Haruki Ishigawa
Word count: 955
Carlito’s passion is one that all of us share. But it’s also one that some of us are more likely to air within earshot of the people involved, rather than throwing it out for the public to see. Don’t get me wrong; I understand why Carlito felt the need to go public here. He’s sick of nothing changing, and he wants to put the people responsible -- all of us -- on blast to try and get something done.
And he’s not wrong. We have been languishing in futility for too long now. Since the Noble scandal, this team has been scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to get a win or two each season and being happy with it. We’re improving. Trust the process. We’re headed in the right direction. We’re just young. The free agent market will pick up. We’re having good drafts. We’re only a player or two away. Next year, that is going to be our season. We’ve come up with, and believed, every excuse in the book. But what it comes down to, week after week, season after season, is this: we’re playing like hot garbage. We’ve been playing like garbage for years. And we can’t blame the coaches. We can’t blame the GMs. We can’t even blame our teammates.
Can we really blame people like Smallwood and Smitfter coming after us on a regular basis? They’re criticizing our play. They’re not mischaracterizing us as people (most of the time), and they’re not dehumanizing us or being unfair. They’re saying we suck, and that’s because we suck. I don’t want to admit it; the coaches and staff don’t want to admit it; and the rest of my teammates sure as hell don’t want to admit it. But it’s the honest, unmitigated, unfiltered truth. We all know the problems. And now, thanks to our second-loudest locker room presence (we all know what Nick is like), the rest of you know, too. There’s no going back. It’s time to move onto solutions.
The tack that I’m choosing to take, in my limited experience in the league, is one of personal responsibility. I’m playing like crap. I was the third overall draft pick. I was expected to come in here and help -- to be a key piece in -- turning this team around. Has our defense played a little better in recent seasons? Maybe, a little bit. Has it outpaced our offense? Maybe, but statistically it doesn’t seem that apparent. We’re hardly scoring at all, and we’re allowing lots of points. We’re at the bottom of the league in both categories, most of the time. And this is on me. It’s probably not me alone, but that doesn’t matter.
I have to do better. I have to work harder. I have two problems. One: I haven’t been earning that money for training and equipment by taking those lucrative sponsorship deals. The truth is, it’s hard for me to believe in something strongly enough to want to put my name and face with it. I haven’t been demanding big contracts. But it’s time for me to put my pride aside and buckle down. How could it be that taking small contracts is hurting my team? How could the opposite be letting go of my pride? Because it’s impacting my play on the field. I need to step up. I need to earn that money so I can keep up with my teammates in the offseason. I need to earn that money so I can pay for the extra training sessions every week. Two: I’ve been resting on my laurels and continuing to do the things I’m best at. I haven’t been hitting the weights as hard as I could, because I tell myself that spending more time in the film room makes just as big an impact. I’m working on my head; I’m working on my hands. I’m doing these things because they come naturally to me. But it’s time for a change. These things might help make me a decent player, but they don’t necessarily make me a better linebacker, and they don’t necessarily make me a better fit for my team. I want to be smashing those offensive line bots by smashing the sleds in practice. I need to be sprinting around the field like a goddamned gazelle by spending my extra time running sprints around the building with Boss. I need to change my philosophy.
These are the things that I can do, personally. These are the ways I’m responsible for our team’s record. These are the ways that I am hurting my teammates, and I’m sick of doing it.
So to my teammates, to my fans, to my coaches, and to everyone who has believed in me along the way, I apologize. I will do better. I will make our team better, as much as I possibly can. I’m not leaving it to Boss and Johnathon anymore. This city deserves a winner, and we haven’t been one. If it takes dying on the field and going off on my shield, so to speak, I’m going to do it. And I hope the rest of my team will, too. It’s time to put together something that we all want:
A winner.
Haruki Ishigawa
Word count: 955