Kevin was quick to start practice passes with his receivers, trying to make sure they had a rudimentary timing in place. Admittedly, he wasn’t half bad, and with each pass, he was getting more and more excited, sold in his victory.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere was much tenser on our side, even as Thad run through the tactics. Though, I had to admit, despite the initial impression a tall, loud, and muscular guy might generate, Thad was shockingly careful when it came to tactics.

Though, despite the detailed explanation, he wasn’t exactly filled with confidence. “Which one of you wants to go first?” he said, doing his best to keep a positive attitude.

I wasn’t impressed, but the same didn’t apply to my solo teammate. “I do,” he said even as he took a step forward. Though, if I was able to read his enthusiasm correctly, he was more interested in the ticket for the party rather than helping out Thad.

He glared at me aggressively, ready to fight for the position.

“You’re the cornerback, you’ll be faster, go ahead,” I said with a nod, giving the initiative, though it was what I preferred in the first place.

I wanted to see how Kevin threw under pressure.

Thad allowed us to watch Kevin throwing the last few practice passes to his receivers while adding some last-minute comments. “He’s not going to have a lot of variations to his routes with new receivers,” Thad explained after watching. “So he will avoid bullet passes to tight windows, relying on touch and lob. The same goes for passes over twenty yards. He won’t be able to time it. So, try to stick to your opponent close, and expect a hard break to the side somewhere between five to fifteen yards.”

I nodded as I listened, carefully watching Kevin’s throwing motion. Not just the trajectory of the ball, but the way his gaze lingered, the way he shifted his weight, and even the way his arm tensed whenever he tried a fake.

As much as I hated to admit, Kevin was a good quarterback, at least for the backup, though it was hard to truly say without the pressure from the defensive linemen trying to take off his head. The ball flew smoothly, to the target.

Thad let out a dismissive gasp whenever he threw a fancy pass comfortably, showing that he had shared my opinion about the low value of his performance without a defense trying to prevent him from succeeding.

I continued to watch carefully.

Not only the quarterback, but also the receivers, the way their arms moved, the angle of their bodies while they faked an attack, their hip twists, even the way their foot shifted slightly whenever they tried to have a break.

I had learned the art of observing in the streets, fighting with the other boys. And believe me, trying to read the movements of a drug-addled robber while he flipped his knife was much easier to read than a young boy trying to throw a ball with the perfect technique.

“Let’s begin,” said Kevin. “I can’t wait to have some fun with the Mustang.”

My unfortunate partner lined against one of the wide receivers --- the best one as shown by the training --- ready to launch. One of the other receivers took the position of the center, to snap the ball back. Without defensive linemen, to make it fair, we agreed to keep the time-limited to three seconds.

And then, we were ready to start.

Roughly, there were nine common routes for a receiver could take, two short, four mid, and three long routes, however, in our case, most of them were irrelevant. The long routes were certainly not valid due to receivers’ inexperience working with this particular quarterback, and similarly, out and comeback routes, which required the receiver to run about ten yards before turning toward the sidelines aggressively, was also unlikely, because it required the receiver to run away from the quarterback, making the pass more difficult to time.

It essentially left four routes to worry about, flat, which was a straight short cut to the sidelines after around five yards, slant, which was an angled cut to the inside, usually around thirty degrees, allowing the receiver to get the ball around the eight-yard mark.

There was also a curl, in which the receiver had to run ten yards before making an angled turn inside, but unlike slant, moving closer to the quarterback rather than away. Then, there was the dig route, running ten yards before making a straight ninety-degree turn inside, running parallel, giving the quarterback the longest window.

Even among the four, I expected slant and dig routes to dominate their choices, because they were by far the easiest passes to achieve in one-on-one practice --- unlike the game, where another linebacker or safety would move down to assist if the receiver ran too far away from its initial location.

People underestimate just how much thought goes for every little play. A receiver-corner competition might look like a pure physical competition, but it was not. It was a real-time strategic challenge.

Less complicated than chess, naturally, but the speed of the action and the randomness due to skill were more than enough to compensate for the relative simplicity. A defender had to read the foot placement of the receiver, the way his center of weight shifted, his hips, trying to read the direction, while making sure it wasn’t just a feint but the actual direction. And even then, half a second of a delay was enough to turn a successful attempt into failure.

However, not everyone approached the game with the same diligence, and my teammate seemed to be one of them. He failed to read the necessary details, so even as he managed to stay in front of the receiver for the first eight yards comfortably, displaying that his physical capabilities were superior.

Unfortunately, when the receiver faked an out route, he committed too hard, trying to impress Thad by trying to get an interception rather than just blocking the pass --- which, under the rules of our current game, would count for more.

It would have been good, but when the receiver instead cut into a dig route, he was already two steps behind. And when a quick pass was concerned, there was no difference between two steps and eternity. A soft touch pass, and the offense scored the first point.

“Good job,” said Kevin, but his gaze was already on Thad. “Let’s see what our linebacker would do.”

His tone lacked recognition. He didn’t even remember me from the tournament, when he memorably egged the tournament building.

There wasn’t a guy more deserving of the lesson I was about to deliver.

My opponent lined against me. I lined half a step outside what I was supposed to do, making an inside route almost trivial. Despite the helmet limiting my field of view, I could see Thad shaking his head in disappointment, ready to write it off the attempt.

I tensed, like I had just realized my big mistake. Kevin called for the ball, trying not to give me a chance to recover my stance. The receiver was already leaning for a slant route at the first step, preparing himself for a showy catch.

Rather than trying to stay close to him, I took a large step forward just as the ball was about to leave the fingers of the quarterback, which, under normal conditions, would have been a horrible, choice. Any decent quarterback would have faked a throw while the receiver changed the direction, achieving a simple score.

Pity that neither had been expecting such a shift, resulting in an interception. “You need to be more careful with the ball, Karl,” I said, using a wrong name just to add some insult to the injury.

The gasp of anger he let out was spectacular. I smirked as I flicked the ball to the receiver who had been acting as the center, leaving my place to my teammate.

“Not bad, newbie,” said Thad, though unlike what I was expecting, he didn’t cheer. He just nodded seriously.

“Lucky move,” Kevin growled, not appreciating my success. Admittedly, his frustration was justified. Failing in such a spectacular way in such a simple exercise, against a newbie trying to get into practice team... If it was a simple incomplete, it wouldn’t have mattered.

An interception, however, was a completely different beast. And in a short route, against a newbie...

It was definitely humiliating. Enough to receive some cheers from the defensive squad.

“If you say so,” I said with a shrug.

“Hey, show a bit more enthusiasm,” Thad said, though rather than the explosive laugh I expected, he smiled, putting his hand on my shoulder.

I didn’t get annoyed by the sudden change of attitude. Football was a results-driven sport. Success earned appreciation, no matter what form, and for defense, the interception was the second most glorious achievement, second only to a strip-sack, stealing the ball, with the delicious addition of smashing the other quarterback to the ground.

I could have simply accepted the compliment, which was the smartest, but only if my aim wasn’t to annoy Kevin even more. “Why should I?” I said, trying to sound genuinely confused. “Isn’t he just the backup quarterback? What’s there to be proud?”

Thad’s voracious laughter exploded at the same as Kevin’s nasty curse. He snarled, and I smirked, happy with his failure.

Just because I liked football didn’t mean I had to like every player, especially annoying assholes who thought egging a chess tournament was the peak of wit.

And it wasn’t sheer enjoyment that was driving my actions. The quarterback was like a general, all about timing, technique, and calm decision-making. If there was one thing that never worked for a quarterback, it was uncontrolled anger.

This time, the cornerback was successful in reading the route, sticking close to him successfully.

It was a difficult pass, but definitely not hopeless. However, in his anger, Kevin threw the ball harder than necessary, which bounced off the hands of a receiver.

“You see, nothing to be proud of,” I said to Thad like it was a given, which evoked the same reaction. A curse from Kevin, and a burst of laughter from Thad.

Sometimes, I could be a vicious bastard.

I positioned in front of the receiver, tense enough to explode. My new opponent run the same slant route, but this time, I let the hands of the receiver touch the ball before I tackled him. Not full force, which was rarely the smartest thing during practice, but still hard enough to make the receiver yelp in shock, not expecting it to get physical.

And when he turned to argue, I hit him with a dark smirk, the kind that actually tapped into the benefits of the Intimidation Trait. After painful collusion, the Trait worked even better than I expected.

He wisely held his tongue, and I turned back to Thad.

“Damn boy, that was vicious,” he said, before his smirk widened. “I like it!”

I shrugged, happy with the benefits of the Intimidation skill. Considering I actually applied intimidation as an integral part of my chess strategy, it would be pretty ridiculous not to do so against people I was actually allowed to hit with flying tackles.

Pity my other two Traits were chess-only, preventing them from being useful under the circumstances.

In the next round against the other defender, Kevin proved that his position as the backup quarterback was not entirely without merit, and actually managed to slip a good pass in a dig route despite the tight window. Unlike me, the cornerback didn’t try to tackle the opponent to the ground.

It was my turn again. This time, I stood directly in front of my opponent, which made it hard for him to reach for any kind of mid-range route due to physical contest.

He wasn’t the one that I hit earlier, but he had been watching it. For a properly conditioned player, that tackle was nothing, but against practice squad candidates that hadn’t played for a couple of years, it was much more intimidating.

And sometimes, the anticipation of pain was even worse than the pain itself, glaring him hard enough to scare him further.

I really loved the Intimidation Trait.

I stuck close, he failed to reach a ball he could have caught easily.

However, interestingly, when I turned to talk with Thad, he was not in his place. I looked around, and found him talking with the defensive coach...

An interesting choice, considering he had a car riding on the bet.