The only thing I can do right now to help Owen is get some more fucking points on the board.
I call the snap count, and when the ball hits my hand, I look up, already knowing I don’t have as much time as I need. A defender comes flying off the edge, fast enough that I don’t have a second to process it properly.
I glance at Reese on the sideline and get the ball out just before he reaches me—
Thwack!
All the air leaves my lungs in a sharp grunt as my helmet snaps back, and I go down hard. The impact rattles through my pads and into my bones. For a second, everything blurs together—the noise, the lights, the feeling of the ground beneath me—and it takes me a second to focus on the blue sky above.
A pair of cleats comes into view beside me, and when I blink the haze away, I see Devin Walker standing there, looking down at me with his hand already extended.
“My bad,” he says. “You got the pass off right as I got there.”
“Good hit,” I grunt, still feeling the pain tingling through my bones.
I can confirm Devin is not a small guy.
I take his hand and let him pull me to my feet, brushing myself off like it didn’t just knock the breath out of me. That’s when I feel it—a sharp ache in my wrist where I caught myself on the way down. I shake it out once on instinct, then stop, forcing my arm still as I become aware of the cameras tracking me. I don’t have to look up to know they’re there, and I definitely don’t need to see the headline they’ll turn it into.
Zach Evans Seen Nursing Wrist After Tough Week 3 Loss.
We haven’t lost yet, and my wrist is fine, so I roll my shoulder, flex my fingers and walk back to my team. I feel a pull in mywrist, but it’s not enough to matter. Not right now. I shove the feeling to the back of my mind and focus on the next play, because that’s all that matters until the clock hits zero.
The next drive stalls. We’re third and four, and I hold the ball for a beat too long, waiting for Dax to break open downfield. By the time I realize my mistake, it’s too late. The pocket collapses and I go down, costing us eight yards and the down.
All we’ve got left is a field goal.
Thankfully, we get it and leave the field with a tied game.
It’s all I can give the defense, but hopefully, it’s enough.
As I walk off, Jacob moves in from the other side of the field, calling something to his receivers. The guy’s got over half a decade of experience in this league, and I’m trying to combat that.
I catch Dax’s eye on the way to the sideline.
“I held it,” I say, before he can.
He nods once. “Yeah.”
That's all either of us needs to say about it.
I’m jogging in when Owen comes the other way with his helmet on and his focus locked in. His unit is about to go out and try to hold a tie game against Jacob Miller, who I have just personally watched complete seven of his last eight passes.
Owen watched it too, and the look on his face tells me everything.
I’ve seen it before.
It’s the same expression he had when I found him in the film room at six in the morning the day after our second loss, watching his losses on repeat. I sat with him for an hour and didn’t say much. The film said it all, and Owen's smart enough to know when someone's filling silence to make themselves feel useful. So we just watched it. Play by play. All the things that didn't work, all the things that almost did, all the tinyincremental places where a different decision, a faster read, a better angle would have changed the outcome.
When I got up to leave, I told him the defense he had right now wasn't the defense he was going to have.
“You don't know that,” he said.
“No,” I said. “But I know you.”
Not exactly inspiring, but he came to practice the next day and was present, which is all you can ask from someone who's been taking the brunt of Coach Masters’ grilling’s the last few weeks.
We pass each other without stopping.
