Season 4 – Game of Inches

Welcome ladies and gentleman to Season 4 of The Lombardi Three. Most teams have been anxiously pinging me for anything new on the upcoming season and I’ve been getting antsy as well. Last season dragged on for 3 months after the last game ended, and there is still some unfinished business for some of us. Before I dish out the administrative stuff, I give you this.

I can feel a lot of anxiety from many of our teams in the league. There was only 1 winner last year, and the bottom 11 teams want another shot at the title like a shark wants blood. A few of our veterans are feeling angst about the imperfections of last season and contemplating a leave of absence – or just quitting altogether.

I don’t know what to say really. We are three weeks away from the start of the biggest battle of our fantasy lives, and it all comes down to today. Either we heal as a league or we are going to crumble inch by inch, week by week till we’re finished. We are at a crossroads right now ladies and gentlemen. Believe me. We can give up and let history kick the shit out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell – one inch at a time.

Now I can’t do it for you. I’m too close to the controls. I made every mistake a coach and a commissioner could make over the course of 3 seasons. You know, when you get old in life things get taken from you. That’s part of life. But you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is fantasy football. Because in both the game of life and fantasy football, the margin for error is so small. One half step too late or too early and your guy doesn’t quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and your guy doesn’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in every break of the game, every minute, every second.

In this league we fight for that inch. In this league we tear ourselves and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know, when we add up all those inches, that’s going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING – between LIVING and DYING!

I’ll tell you this – in any fight it is the guy who is willing to die who is going to win that inch. And I know if I am going to have any life anymore it is because I am still willing to fight and die for that inch because that is what LIVING is. The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can’t make you do it. You gotta look in the mirror at the guy staring back at you. Look into that coach’s eyes. Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch. You are going to see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this league because he knows when it comes down to it; it is in his blood – in her blood. That’s a league ladies and gentlemen, and either we heal now as a league or we die as individuals. That’s fantasy football. That’s all it is. Now, what are you gonna do?