03-27-2024, 01:00 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-27-2024, 08:53 AM by lemonoppy. Edited 1 time in total.)
In and out of practice each day, the thud of the football hitting his hands almost felt wrong.
Sure, Big Tractor had always been up for a game of catch with his friends in the park. He’d handled a football for team photos back in his college days. Sometimes, when a stray ball came rolling over, a throw that had come up short or had bounced off a receiver’s fingers, Big Tractor was the first one to walk over, pick it up, and toss it back. But to feel a throw- a real throw- hit his hands the way it was now? It was a sensation completely alien to him. His hands belonged in the frame of the guy across from him. It’s what the boys in the trenches were made for.
Big Tractor wasn’t the brightest, but he also wasn’t the dumbest either. The meeting with Kansas City had gone well, great even, but almost all of the questions they asked him, be they deep, funny, insightful, tricky, whatever the case, felt secondary compared to one. It had rang through his ears like a bad case of tinnitus, bouncing into his brain as he tried, and failed, to think of anything else over the next couple of days. Just when he thought he’d finally gotten over it, it came right back when he saw his name next to the number four. Not even the cheering of his family and friends sitting right next to him, nor the legion of Coyote fans excitedly yelling his name, could drown out that one question.
“Would you be willing to switch positions if the need arose?”
At first, Big Tractor had scoffed at the question. The Tractor bloodline had all been offensive lineman since anyone could remember. It was said that his several-greats-back grandfather, Adequate Tractor, had been the first offensive lineman in football history. Being a tackle wasn’t just something that he loved, it wasn’t just the position that fit his size and skillset, it was something that was rooted in his DNA. From his first time playing full-padded football in Middle School- he was too big for Pop Warner- until now, he hadn’t seen a part of the field that wasn’t the line.
No. Shut up. I’m a tackle. That’s what I play, that’s what I’ll always play, and I won’t be switching my position for anyone. Like it or leave it.
That’s what he had thought, and it was certainly what he wanted to say, but he held his tongue. He didn’t know whether it was the good head between his broad shoulders taking over for one, telling him to think before speaking, or just a sheer sense of pragmatism, knowing that an outburst at an interview was a bad look, but whatever it was, it made him stop and ponder the question. What could they be on to? What could they possibly see in him, the guy who ate twenty-something pancakes in one sitting, doing for them other than the grunt work fat guys are known for? He didn’t want to doubt the front office’s wisdom outright, but it wasn’t easy to see the logic. What was Kansas City’s angle here? No one else had really pressed the issue like they had.
“Uh… yeah, sure, I guess.”
It was the type of answer that said everything while saying nothing at all. Of course he wasn’t going to say no. You put yourself before the team, always, but it also hinted that he didn’t take the question too seriously in the first place. He was giving the answer that they wanted to hear, but an actual, serious position switch was so far off from his mind that they might as well take the hint and can the idea. He hoped they would, or that it was just another generic question all along and he was overthinking things.
Then draft day came. At pick four, higher than he could’ve dreamed of after tasting that last, bitter loss in the Motor City Bowl, he was picked up by Kansas City. Not only had their question been a serious one, they had thought the most out of his non-committal answer. Switching positions could be fun as a thought experiment, but now it was for real. As he met with coaches and front office staff all throughout the following week, it became evident. On the line no longer, now he was a wide receiver.
It took a lot of time to adjust. His hands were big enough, but catching a pass down the seams, or getting ready off a curl, came as naturally to him as dancing did at 6th grade cotillion. The first few weeks were filled with dropped passes, sloppy routes, and a slowness that made him lag behind even the tight ends. It felt hopeless, an experiment gone horribly wrong, but every time he raised the question of going back to his old position, the coach waved it off. It was going to take time and grit. The latter Big Tractor had plenty of, but the former, with the season fast-approaching, was in short supply.
As training camp came and went, giving way to the preseason, it felt like some of the work had paid off. Maybe he wasn’t quite the fastest, but with how big his frame was it was hard to slow him down. Maybe he didn’t have the best hands, but there wasn’t anyone who was going to knock it away from him. Maybe he didn’t have the crispest footwork, but with the amount of space he could take up, he made up for it some. He could make something of it, this new role, but it’d take a dedication that he didn’t know he had. His mind could recall thousands of hours of puking, sweat, utter pain, but for all that he had put in on the offensive line, he had the God-given advantage of just being plain bigger. Now, at receiver, it was going to be the skill he honed, even at a disadvantage, that put him over the top.
It wasn’t what he thought was going to be his path in pro ball, heck, it wasn’t even what he asked for, but the past year had brought a lot of surprises for Big Tractor. It was his job to embrace them, acknowledge them, and not shy away. Kansas City had given him an opportunity that thousands of others didn’t have. He faced challenges before, what was one more? It’s what the sport was meant for: rising to the occasion, the ultimate test of one person’s willpower and strength to overcome adversity. To retreat from the insurmountable would be to reject the very foundation of the sport he lived in breathed. No chance.
One practice, when he and the rest of the receiver corps had a few minutes’ downtime, he took a moment to reflect on what the Kansas City GM had asked him all those months ago, really a short period of time that now felt like an eternity. At first, he thought the question was the height of literalism; an open-showing of the Coyote’s cards as they spelled out their intent to make him a wide receiver. Now that it was done, he saw that there was something behind those words, even if they proved true at face value.
We’re building a team to win. To do so, it means you’re going to be put through hell. Is that a price you’re willing to pay for everyone here?
“Absolutely.”
Sure, Big Tractor had always been up for a game of catch with his friends in the park. He’d handled a football for team photos back in his college days. Sometimes, when a stray ball came rolling over, a throw that had come up short or had bounced off a receiver’s fingers, Big Tractor was the first one to walk over, pick it up, and toss it back. But to feel a throw- a real throw- hit his hands the way it was now? It was a sensation completely alien to him. His hands belonged in the frame of the guy across from him. It’s what the boys in the trenches were made for.
Big Tractor wasn’t the brightest, but he also wasn’t the dumbest either. The meeting with Kansas City had gone well, great even, but almost all of the questions they asked him, be they deep, funny, insightful, tricky, whatever the case, felt secondary compared to one. It had rang through his ears like a bad case of tinnitus, bouncing into his brain as he tried, and failed, to think of anything else over the next couple of days. Just when he thought he’d finally gotten over it, it came right back when he saw his name next to the number four. Not even the cheering of his family and friends sitting right next to him, nor the legion of Coyote fans excitedly yelling his name, could drown out that one question.
“Would you be willing to switch positions if the need arose?”
At first, Big Tractor had scoffed at the question. The Tractor bloodline had all been offensive lineman since anyone could remember. It was said that his several-greats-back grandfather, Adequate Tractor, had been the first offensive lineman in football history. Being a tackle wasn’t just something that he loved, it wasn’t just the position that fit his size and skillset, it was something that was rooted in his DNA. From his first time playing full-padded football in Middle School- he was too big for Pop Warner- until now, he hadn’t seen a part of the field that wasn’t the line.
No. Shut up. I’m a tackle. That’s what I play, that’s what I’ll always play, and I won’t be switching my position for anyone. Like it or leave it.
That’s what he had thought, and it was certainly what he wanted to say, but he held his tongue. He didn’t know whether it was the good head between his broad shoulders taking over for one, telling him to think before speaking, or just a sheer sense of pragmatism, knowing that an outburst at an interview was a bad look, but whatever it was, it made him stop and ponder the question. What could they be on to? What could they possibly see in him, the guy who ate twenty-something pancakes in one sitting, doing for them other than the grunt work fat guys are known for? He didn’t want to doubt the front office’s wisdom outright, but it wasn’t easy to see the logic. What was Kansas City’s angle here? No one else had really pressed the issue like they had.
“Uh… yeah, sure, I guess.”
It was the type of answer that said everything while saying nothing at all. Of course he wasn’t going to say no. You put yourself before the team, always, but it also hinted that he didn’t take the question too seriously in the first place. He was giving the answer that they wanted to hear, but an actual, serious position switch was so far off from his mind that they might as well take the hint and can the idea. He hoped they would, or that it was just another generic question all along and he was overthinking things.
Then draft day came. At pick four, higher than he could’ve dreamed of after tasting that last, bitter loss in the Motor City Bowl, he was picked up by Kansas City. Not only had their question been a serious one, they had thought the most out of his non-committal answer. Switching positions could be fun as a thought experiment, but now it was for real. As he met with coaches and front office staff all throughout the following week, it became evident. On the line no longer, now he was a wide receiver.
It took a lot of time to adjust. His hands were big enough, but catching a pass down the seams, or getting ready off a curl, came as naturally to him as dancing did at 6th grade cotillion. The first few weeks were filled with dropped passes, sloppy routes, and a slowness that made him lag behind even the tight ends. It felt hopeless, an experiment gone horribly wrong, but every time he raised the question of going back to his old position, the coach waved it off. It was going to take time and grit. The latter Big Tractor had plenty of, but the former, with the season fast-approaching, was in short supply.
As training camp came and went, giving way to the preseason, it felt like some of the work had paid off. Maybe he wasn’t quite the fastest, but with how big his frame was it was hard to slow him down. Maybe he didn’t have the best hands, but there wasn’t anyone who was going to knock it away from him. Maybe he didn’t have the crispest footwork, but with the amount of space he could take up, he made up for it some. He could make something of it, this new role, but it’d take a dedication that he didn’t know he had. His mind could recall thousands of hours of puking, sweat, utter pain, but for all that he had put in on the offensive line, he had the God-given advantage of just being plain bigger. Now, at receiver, it was going to be the skill he honed, even at a disadvantage, that put him over the top.
It wasn’t what he thought was going to be his path in pro ball, heck, it wasn’t even what he asked for, but the past year had brought a lot of surprises for Big Tractor. It was his job to embrace them, acknowledge them, and not shy away. Kansas City had given him an opportunity that thousands of others didn’t have. He faced challenges before, what was one more? It’s what the sport was meant for: rising to the occasion, the ultimate test of one person’s willpower and strength to overcome adversity. To retreat from the insurmountable would be to reject the very foundation of the sport he lived in breathed. No chance.
One practice, when he and the rest of the receiver corps had a few minutes’ downtime, he took a moment to reflect on what the Kansas City GM had asked him all those months ago, really a short period of time that now felt like an eternity. At first, he thought the question was the height of literalism; an open-showing of the Coyote’s cards as they spelled out their intent to make him a wide receiver. Now that it was done, he saw that there was something behind those words, even if they proved true at face value.
We’re building a team to win. To do so, it means you’re going to be put through hell. Is that a price you’re willing to pay for everyone here?
“Absolutely.”