The Crystal City Sabretooths are top of the league, and us, the Yerba Whalers just up the coast, are struggling to hold on to the middle. It’s my third year as a pro football player, and I’m finally in the starting lineup, if only as a change-of-pace back. Means I get about fifteen carries a game, on average. I’ve had ten by the half of this one, because our starter needs a lot of rest. Crystal City’s defense is number one in the league, featuring a bear and a boar who are beasts at stuffing the lanes, and a lion on the end who is quick as lightning, with muscles like thunder. The boar ain’t afraid to use his tusks, which do not have to be capped or blunted. If you manage to get through them, they’ve got two muscular coyotes and a wolf, faster than the lion, even, waiting to take you down. I’ve got a nice set of antlers—points capped per league policy, unlike the boar’s tusks, and you can call that unfair, but that don’t change the way it is—but these guys come at you from all angles.
